I wanted to make a sweet, festive bread based on my hot cross bun recipe, and dress it up for New Year’s. Here it is–a citrus and spice bread with lemon icing and a sprinkle of candied mandarin peel.

The recipe is approximately as follows:

Heat together

1 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar (plus one teaspoon, explained later)
~1 tsp orange zest (about half an orange’s worth)
~1 tsp lemon zest (about one lemon’s worth)
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp butter

Note: I used the extra tsp sugar because I like to mix the spices and zest with something dry so they don’t clump in the milk and I forgot to do so before adding the sugar to the milk. I doubt it matters in the long run, since they get kneaded in, and in any case, I think I’ll start adding the dry spices to the flour instead. Still, the extra tsp of sugar tastes good, so maybe I’ll keep it.

The disadvantage of adding the spices to the flour would be that when I dip a (clean) finger in to see if the milk mixture has cooled enough to add to the yeast, it won’t taste as incredibly yummy. Oh well.

(If I were making hot cross buns, I would put 1/4 cup of raisins in with the milk to soften.)

When milk mixture is lukewarm, mix together

2 1/4 tsp yeast (or one packet)
2 Tbsp warm water .

(I think I can skip this step, actually, given the bread machine yeast I am using, and just put the yeast in with the flour and add 2 Tbsp water or milk to the milk mixture.)

Then add the milk mixture to the yeast mixture, and mix in

15 ounces all-purpose flour (a bit less than 3 cups).

I used 15.5 ounces this time, and had to add some extra liquid. Ideally the dough should end up a bit sticky, and this one wasn’t. So don’t add all the flour right away–you may not need all of it. I kneaded it with the kneading attachment on my stand mixer, about five minutes.

Coat with some melted butter and put in bowl to rise, covered, 45-60 minutes. Then divide into 8 and shape. I think rolling the strands is the hardest part of this whole thing.

These strands came out pretty well!

First, cross each pair of strands going in the same direction. I decided to start in the middle of the loaf.

Then, ignoring outermost strands, cross strands again in reverse direction. Here I did this on each side of the initial crossing, working toward both ends.

Starting with the outer strand again, cross each pair again as you did the first time. Aim for diagonally woven bread–each strand alternates going over and under.

Keep going, weaving the strands over and under by crossing pairs of strands in one direction, then different pairings in the other direction.

Then squish the ends together and tidy the whole thing up till you like the way it looks.

Ends pinched together and weave tidied up.

Then let rise again, covered, about 30-40 minutes.

I decided to brush it with beaten egg for a shiny finish (also, I was making scrambled eggs at the time.)

After rising, brushed with beaten egg.

Bake in preheated 375 oven for 10 minutes or a bit more, till browned.

The icing is

1/2 cup powdered sugar (plus some more)
2 tsp milk
1/8 tsp lemon extract

Mix, warm up in microwave, add more powdered sugar as needed till it is spreadable/gloopy when warm, but stiffens up as it cools. However, while thicker icing makes the bread less smeary for eating, it had the unexpected effect that when I sprinkled chopped candied mandarin peel on it, the bits either bounced off or lodged in the crevices of the bread. They wouldn’t stick to the icing. We had to press them into the icing to make them stay.

So you might want to keep the icing thinner and stickier. Your choice.

While I called this a braided bread, I think it is actually a woven bread, or a lattice. “Braid” suggests something more rope-like, more like the 8-stranded braid on The Great British Baking Show that originally inspired me to try this, but which is much less lattice-like.

After watching an episode of the Great British Baking Show in which the bakers faced a technical challenge that involved an eight-strand braided bread, I was inspired to try to figure out how to do an eight-strand braid. After watching the Masterclass version, I don’t think my solution is the same as Paul’s. Actually, I like mine better. Here are the photos.

The finished loaf

Before rising. Note that I left gaps between strands.

You may have noticed that I made a mistake in the braid at one point. I didn’t notice till it was halfway through rising. I’m still pleased with it. I used a pizza dough and spritzed it with oil rather than use Paul’s recipe and brush it with egg. Next time, I’ll try a sweet dough with an egg wash.

For those of you who have tried signing up for email notifications via the email notification gadget on the right side of the page, above the pears and below the green banner, I hope it worked.

Till the New Year. (Unless I have other photos I want to share.)