Braided Bread Wreath Recipes

BRAIDED WREATH BREAD

Steps:

• In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, sugar, butter, 1 egg, orange zest, salt, extract and 1 cup flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. , Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour., Punch dough down; divide into thirds. Roll each portion into a 20-in. rope. Braid the ropes; shape into a wreath and pinch ends to seal. Place on a greased baking sheet. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 45 minutes., For glaze, beat egg; lightly brush over dough. Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool.

BRAIDED FRUIT WREATH

Steps:

• In a large bowl, stir yeast into water to soften. Add milk, butter, sugar, lemon rind, eggs, salt, mace, and 2 cups flour. Beat vigorously for 2 minutes.
• Gradually add flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until the dough begins to pull away from the side of the bowl.
• Turn dough out onto a floured work surface. Knead, adding flour a little at a time, until you have a smooth, elastic dough.
• Put dough into an oiled bowl. Turn to coat the entire ball of dough with oil. Cover with a tightly woven towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
• Turn dough out onto a lightly oiled work surface and divide in half. Using a rolling pin, roll half of the dough into a 22 by 9-inch rectangle. Cover and let rest 5 minutes on the work surface.
• Cut the dough into three 22-inch long strips.
• Mix the nuts and candied fruit. Fill the center of each strip with 1/2 cup of the nut and fruit mixture. Bring edges together and pinch to seal forming three 22-inch-long strands.
• Lay the strands side-by-side on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Turn the baking sheet so the strands are facing lengthwise away from you. Starting in the center of the strands, place the right strand over the middle strand (the right strand has now become the middle strand), then the left strand over the middle, the right over the middle, left over the middle, etc. Continue this process until the strands are too short to braid. Do not pinch the end together.
• To braid the other end of the loaf, turn the baking sheet around so that the unbraided portion is facing you. Place the middle strand over the right strand, then middle strand over the left, middle over the right, middle over the left, etc., until the ends are too short to braid. Join the ends of the braid to form a wreath, and pinch to seal. Repeat with the other half of the dough. Cover with a tightly woven towel and let rise until almost doubled, about 45 minutes.
• About 10 minutes before baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Bake for 25 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the loaf reaches 190 degrees.
• Immediately remove bread from baking sheet and cool on a rack for 20 minutes.
• Combine powdered sugar and cream. Mixture should be the consistency of honey (if it isn't, adjust by adding more cream to thin it or powdered sugar to thicken it). Drizzle over the top of each wreath.

BRAIDED BREAD WREATH

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment and sprinkle with a thin layer of cornmeal.
• On a floured work surface, roll out the 3 dough portions into 3 long ropes. Line the 3 ropes up next to each other with the top ends overlapping and the bottom ends about 3 inches apart. Pinch the top ends. Braid the ropes together; pull the left section over to the center, then hold the old center section with your left hand and pull it to the side. Finally, bring the right section over the center. Repeat the process, alternating sides, until the entire length of bread is braided. Join both ends to form a round wreath.
• Transfer the dough wreath to the parchment lined sheet pan. Dust with flour, and cover with a kitchen towel. Let proof in a warm spot for 45 minutes.
• In a small bowl mix together the olive oil, garlic, paprika, Italian seasoning, and cheese. Set aside. Beat the egg with the water in a small bowl, and set aside
• Bake the bread wreath in the preheated oven for 40 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Remove the bread from the oven, and brush it with the olive oil mixture. Put it back in the oven, and bake it for an additional 20 minutes. In the last 10 minutes of baking, coat the entire wreath with the egg wash and sprinkle with coarse salt. Remove from the oven and serve hot.

THANKSGIVING BRAIDED BREAD WREATH RECIPE

Steps:

• In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, mix together the flour, water and sugar until it comes together into a soft dough. Cover and let sit for twenty minutes if you have time. If not, keep on going.
• Add the olive oil, salt, yeast, and poultry seasoning to your mixer bowl and continue to mix until all the ingredients are evenly distributed.
• Knead on medium-low speed for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. The dough should completely clear the sides and the bottom of your mixing bowl. If the dough sticks a bit in the bottom, add a small amount of flour (1 tablespoon or so) and continue kneading another couple of minutes.
• Once the dough is smooth and stretchy, oil your hands and gather the dough into a ball.
• Plop the ball back in the mixing bowl, spray lightly with pan spray or brush with some olive oil and allow to rise in a warm place until at least doubled, about 3 hours. Dough should be very light and airy.
• Evenly press all the gases out of the dough and place back in the mixer bowl. Oil or spray the top again, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.
• Remove the dough from the fridge and press out any gases that have built up in it.
• Portion out 5 4oz pieces of dough. Cut the remaining dough into 3 equal pieces. These pieces will be smaller and are for the leaves and pinecone.
• Shape the 5 pieces of dough into smooth balls. Take one of the dough balls and roll it out on the counter until you have a very short and fat snake.
• Set aside and do the same with each of the other four balls.
• Keep rolling them a bit longer, one at a time in succession, until all five balls have magically turned into ropes about 3 feet long.
• You can also make them shorter for a smaller wreath or even just braid them as a straight loaf. Totally your call. The reason why you're working with each piece in succession is that short rest while you're working with the other ones allows the gluten to relax enough to roll them out a bit longer with each turn. It took me a good five turns of rolling each one before I liked the length.
• Pinch the ends of the five ropes together at one end.
• Position the strands so you have two on one side of the work space and three on the other. (See Video, above and embedded in the recipe card).
• The two sets of strands should be at about a 45 degree angle from each other.
• Take the outside strand on the side with three and move it across his two friends to end up next to the two strands on the other side.
• Now that side has three strands and the other has two.
• Move the outside strand on that side across his two friends to end up next to the two strands on the original side.
• Keep braiding like that, keeping the angle between the two sets of strands as consistent as possible so the braid is uniform, until you get to the end. (Again, see video for a visual of this.)
• PInch the five ends together at the far end, and then form them into a ring.
• Pinch the ends together where they meet. That part won't be gorgeous, but that's okay because we're going to cover them with dough leaves.
• Place the wreath on a parchment-lined pan (I turned a half sheet pan upside down so my wreath wouldn't get messed up if it started pressing against the sides. If you have a flat cookie sheet, that will work as well.
• Knead the turmeric into one of the remaining balls of dough as well as you can.
• Do the same with the paprika to another of them.
• Knead a bit of cocoa powder into the third ball if you want your pinecone to be brown. I left mine natural, so it's your call.
• Roll the yellow and orange dough out very thin. You should not need to flour or oil your work surface. This dough is very easy to work with.
• Use cookie cutters to cut out leaf shapes. If you don't have leaf cutters, heart and star cutters will work because once you cut them out, you can pull on the shapes to make them more leaf-like. A third option is to just free-hand it all. That's what I did, and it worked out just fine. I cut out leaf shapes with a sharp paring knife.
• Use a bit of water to "glue" the leaves Artfully onto your wreath. You can go all the way around or stay in one place like I did. You can make your leaves bigger or smaller. Go crazy!
• For the pine
• cone/s, form small egg shapes and stick them where you want them.
• My guys slumped a bit, so I would probably add more flour to the third ball of dough the next time.
• Take scissors and snip into the dough at regular intervals to simulate the...petals? What are those called? If nobody has any issues with nuts, you can also use sliced almonds to simulate the petal things. Just shove them into the dough eggs so they look like pinecones.
• Spray the finished bread lightly with pan spray, cover and refrigerate for 6 hours.
• Remove the dough from the fridge. It won't look too much different than it did when you put it in there in the first place, but it has been sneakily developing flavor.
• Let rise in a warm place in your kitchen while you preheat the oven for an hour.
• Place a baking stone on the center rack and preheat to 350F.
• At the end of the hour, brush the whole loaf with the egg wash and transfer the bread--still on the parchment--to the baking stone.
• Bake for 15 minutes. Rotate the pan and bake another 10-15 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bread is 200F-205F.
• If your bread isn't as brown as you'd like (mine wasn't), put it under the broiler--watching carefully--for a couple of minutes.
• Remove to a rack to cool.
• Wash and some small rosemary sprigs and poke them into the bread (artfully, of course) around the pinecones.
• Use as part of your Thanksgiving table centerpiece and then pass to share.

BRAIDED BREAD WREATH

Steps:

• Unroll bread dough. Cut into three equal pieces. Roll each piece into an 18 to 20 inch long strip. Braid strips. Join ends to form wreath and place on ungreased baking sheet.
• Combine 1 Tbsp. milk and egg (reserve 1 Tbsp. milk for glaze). Whisk thoroughly. Brush on top of wreath. Sprinkle tinted sugar and cinnamon on top. Set aside in a warm, draft-free place. Let proof until approximately doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours
• Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake wreath 45 minutes (should sound hollow and be golden brown).
• Mix reserved milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Fill decorating bag or sandwich bag approximately 1/3 full. Snip off end of bag. Starting at inside edge, pipe a continuous line from inside to outside all around wreath. Repeat if necessary until glaze is gone or desired coverage is achieved.
• Divide ready to spread frosting into two bowls. Tint one green and one red. With green: fill bag. Cut bag tip into a point (or use a leaf decorating tip). Pipe clusters of three leaves (base of leaves joined in center, points of leaves facing out) randomly around top of wreath. With red: fill bag. Snip off end. Pipe three small red berries in centers of leaf clusters. Snip off more of bag to make enlarge hole. Pipe a bow where the ends of the bread dough was joined.