A parent can move mountains for their children, or twist the beard of Santa Claus 🙂 The result: children are delighted, parents are happy. And the festive mood is gaining momentum.

Fresh out of the oven a new bread recipe for the New Years! And what a scent it has !!!!!!

Santa Claus Bread

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups flour
• 100 g butter
• 100 g sour cream
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 25 g fresh yeast (or 11 g instant dry yeast)
• 40 ml milk

Cooking method:

1. Dissolve the yeast in warm milk with sugar and set aside for 15 minutes in a warm place.
2. Melt the butter, remove from heat, cool slightly. Add salt, sour cream, egg, mix well. Then add half of the sifted flour, pour the diluted yeast with sugar on it and mix gently. In this case, the yeast should not come into contact with the melted butter, otherwise their activity will decrease.
3. Continuing to knead the dough, gradually add all the remaining sifted flour. Knead a homogeneous dough that does not stick to your hands (knead for at least 10 minutes).
4. The dough should turn out to be light, semi-liquid, fatty, in consistency close to thick sour cream. Cover the dough with a towel and refrigerate. When the dough rises after 40 minutes, knead and place the dough on a floured table to form a pie.
5. Divide the dough into 2 even parts. Form a ball from one part. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin, giving it the shape of a pear.
6. Put the prepared dough on a baking sheet lined with paper greased with vegetable oil. Then we shape the cake on a baking sheet.
7. We make a beard – with a sharp kitchen knife, cut a wide part of the pear into strips, and immediately twist each strip like a rope (otherwise the strips will stick together again).
8. Divide the deferred part of the dough into 3 parts
   – roll one into an oval and again make cuts and twist them – this will be the second layer of the beard;
   – roll the second into an oval, roll it in the middle like a bow and cut the edges, giving the shape of a mustache;
   – roll 2 balls from the third part (one smaller is the nose; the second longer is a pompom on a hat) and a wide strip (this is a hat)
9. We put the prepared “spare parts” on the rolled dough with a beard. Grease the nose, hat with pompom and cheeks with beet juice. Separately beat the yolk with a fork and brush over the surface of the cake for a pleasant amber color after baking.
10. Bake the cake in an oven preheated to 160C for about 30 minutes.

Important

• Yeast should be diluted in milk heated to a temperature of + 36C.
• When the oil is mixed with the rest of the ingredients, the mixture should be warm, but not hot.
• Sifting flour at the time of kneading the dough contributes to its enrichment with oxygen and the dough becomes fluffy and light.
• Use a wooden spoon to knead the dough.
• Rotation during kneading is important: it should be carried out in one direction, which is due to the physicochemical processes occurring during this process in the dough.
• To prevent the dough from sticking to the table, periodically you need to lift it with an ordinary wooden ruler.