Julekage

Every country has some bread that they celebrate holidays with. Julekage is a Scandinavian holiday bread. It is very similar to Italian Panettone or fruit bread. We don't celebrate Christmas, but that cannot stop me from baking a beautiful bread. Can it? This bread makes a nice gift bread. Of course it has to be consumed within 4 - 5 days since there is no preservative added.

I am going to work today and I split the whole dough into two loaves so that I can take one loaf to work and be done with it. I baked it last night and since there was no time to shoot the picture in the morning, I had to use artificial light and shoot in the night. I will update the picture when I make this again for gift giving.

One year back - Dry Fruit Yeast Bread/Cake
Two years back - Coconut Almond Cookies
Adapted from - Land-O-Lakes
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 3 1/4 - 4 Cups (See Notes)
Water - 1/2 cup
Milk - 1/2 cup
Instant yeast - 2 1/4 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Butter - 1/4 cup at room temperature
Cardamom powder - 3/4 tsp or from about 7 pods
Tutti fruity - 3/4 cup
Golden Raisins - 3/4 cup
Egg - 1 large (You could replace it with yogurt or sourcream)

Glaze:
Confectioner's Sugar - 1 Cup
Milk - 2 -3 TBSP to make a pourable glaze


Method:
Refer to the source to make the dough by hand. I placed all the ingredients for the bread except for the raisins and tutti fruity in the bread machine pan and started the dough cycle. When it beeps, add the raisins and dried fruits. Adjust the flour if necessary. This dough is tacky when it is just finished kneading. Slightly sticky dough also works fine. When the dough cycle completes, prepare to shape the dough. On a lightly floured surface, punch down the dough and make a ball. Place in a lightly greased 9" round cake pan. Since I divided them into two, I placed them in 6" round pans. Cover with a greased aluminum foil and let it rise for an hour or till double in volume. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake 9" round for 35 - 40 minutes or two small loaves for 25 - 30 minutes or till lightly golden. Remove from the pan immediately after removing from the oven. Cool on the wire rack completely and when cool, pour glaze on the top. Decorate with glazed cherries if desired. All I had was maraschino cherries and I used them.

Notes:
When I lightly spooned and measured, it took 4 1/2 cups of flour. If you scoop and level the flour while measuring, you might have to use just 3 1/2 cups. Start with 3 1/2 cups and add more if required. Original recipe had candied citron which I neither have at home nor am I fond of it. I replaced the entire amount of dried fruit and nut with whatever we like at home. You could use part of that as almonds or your favorite nuts.


Today is day 8 of the bake-a-thon. Do drop in and check out what my Bake-A-Thon buddies are baking in their kitchens -  Susan, Preethi, Veena, Priya.

Enjoy.

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