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Other St. Nicholas Breads

St. Nicholas Buns (New England)

In our family we have always celebrated with St. Nicholas Buns for breakfast. These tasty holiday treats are very easy to make and bring a bit of something special to the breakfast table. Serve for breakfast on St. Nicholas Day, perhaps with glasses of cranberry juice. They may be made ahead, then reheated in the oven. They also make excellent gifts.
—Geraldine Duncann

Recipe may be halved to make 12 buns. The editor has supplied a recipe for sweet roll dough

½ cup warm water (not hot—110 to 115º)
2 packages active dry yeast
1½ cups lukewarm milk (scald, then cool to lukewarm)
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 eggs
½ cup soft shortening
7 to 7½ cups flour

Whole berry cranberry sauce
1 egg
Raw sugar (Turbinado or Demerara)
Bakers' Syrup*
Small candy canes
Small sprigs of non-toxic greenery, like pine

In mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add milk, sugar, salt, egg, shortening and 5 cups of flour. With dough hook, blend for 3 minutes on speed 2, until thoroughly mixed. On speed 2, add flour ½ cup at a time until flour cleans bowl, for 5 minutes. Be careful not to add too much flour. Place dough in a greased bowl in a warm place until doubled in size (about 90 minutes).

When ready to form, divide dough into 24 equal pieces. Flatten each into a circle about 1/4-inch thick. Put a scant teaspoon of cranberry sauce in the center of each round. Gather up the edges and pinch together well to seal the cranberry sauce inside. Set sealed side down on a baking sheet lined with bakers' parchment. Put the buns about 2 inches apart. Paint all exposed surfaces with an egg wash: 1 egg beaten lightly with 1 tablespoon of cold water. Sprinkle the tops with a bit of raw, not brown, sugar. Place in a warm place to rise until almost double in bulk (about 30 minutes), then bake in a 350º oven until golden brown, about 30 minutes.

As soon as they come out of the oven paint generously with bakers syrup. Allow to cool a bit, then stick a small candy cane and a small sprig of greenery into the top of each bun. Happy St. Nicholas Day!

*BAKERS' SYRUP

1 cup water
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon vanilla

Put all in a small sauce pan, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 15 or 20 minutes.

Adapted from Geraldine Duncann, The Questing Feast (nice pictures and instructions). Used by permission.

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St. Nicholas Surprise Bread Purses

These golden-baked bread bundles, filled with a cream cheese surprise, can remind us of the coin purses with dowry money St. Nicholas tossed through a window. Made with either a savory or sweet filling and tied with festive ribbons, these rolls make a very special breakfast or brunch treat. If you make half savory and half sweet, remember to divide the egg. As the dough needs to chill, it may be best to make them the day before serving, or even longer, as they freeze well.

1 package active dry yeast
¼ cup warm water (110º)
½ cup (1/4 lb.) butter or margarine
½ cup half-and-half (light cream) or milk
3 tablespoons sugar (omit if using savory filling)
3 eggs
4 to 4¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
Sweet or savory cheese filling (recipes follow)
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

In large bowl of an electric mixer, stir yeast with water and let stand 5 minutes. Melt butter and mix with half-and-half and sugar; add to yeast mixture with eggs, 2 cups flour, nutmeg, and salt. Stir to blend. Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes.

If using dough hook, gradually mix in 2 cups flour; beat at medium speed until dough pulls from bowl sides. Add 2 to 4 tablespoons more flour if needed. Remove hook and scrape down bowl; cover with plastic wrap.

Or by hand, use a heavy spoon to mix in 1¾ cups flour. Scrape onto a board coated with about ¼ cup flour. Knead, adding flour as required, until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Put into a greased bowl; turn to grease top; cover bowl.

Let dough rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1½ hours. Punch down and knead several times. Wrap airtight and refrigerate least 2 hours or as long as overnight.

Knead dough several turns to remove air, then divide into 16 equal portions. Shape one portion at a time into a 6- to 6½-inch circle. Place equal portions (2 to 2½ tablespoons) of filling in center. Draw dough up around filling, and pleat pinch firmly just above filling, letting dough top flare loosely. As you finish each bundle, place 2 inches apart on greased 10- by 15-inch baking sheets; cover loosely with plastic wrap and keep cold until all the dough is shaped.

Place baking sheets with covered bundles in a warm spot and let rise until puffy, about 30 minutes, then uncover. To seal firmly, lightly pinch pleats together again. Brush surfaces with egg- water mixture. Bake in a 350º oven until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Tie with ribbons and serve warm or at room temperature (cloth ribbons may be reheated, but not plastic ribbons that will melt). To store, cool completely; freeze up to 6 months. Makes 16 buns.

Sweet cheese filling
Beat together 2 large packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, at room temperature, with
½cup powdered sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
¼ teaspoon almond extract
Stir in 1 cup raisins and
½ cup chopped candied orange peel
Use, or cover and chill as long as overnight.

Savory cheese filling:
Beat together 1 large package (8 oz.) cream cheese, at room temperature
8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1 egg
1 cup finely chopped green onion.
Use, or cover and chill as long as overnight.

From Sunset Magazine, December 1982, pp. 88,89.

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Saint Nicholas Bread

This is a sourdough bread which requires preparing the starter 5 to 7 days before us—

Late in the evening (about 9 pm) make a sponge of the following:

2 cups warm water
4 cups natural, unbleached stone-ground white flour
3 tablespoons sugar or white corn syrup
1 ½ cups starter (see below)

Beat together thoroughly, cover tightly in a large mixing bowl and let stand in comfortably warm place overnight. Early in the morning (about 7 am) make a dough with the following ingredients:

2 cups warm water
1 cup dried skim milk powder
½ teaspoon ginger
6 tablespoons soft lard
3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons salt
9 cups natural flour

Stir the dried milk and ginger into the warm water. Add to the sponge with the other ingredients, reserving 2 cups of the flour to spread on the pastry board. Stir until the dough clears the bowl. Turn out onto the floured board and knead thoroughly for several minutes, using a little more flour if necessary to make a smooth, non-sticky dough. Return to bowl, brush top with lard, cover with a light towel and let rise until light (about 1 ¼ hours). Turn out dough, knead well without using any more flour than necessary, divide and shape into loaves or rolls as desired. Place in greased pans, brush tops with soft lard, cover and let rise until the pans feel quite light when lifted (about 2 ¼ hours). Bake in oven preheated to 350º F. about 30 minutes for rolls and 50 to 60 minutes for loaves, according to size. About 5 minutes before the end of the baking period brush top of bread with soft lard or butter and again as soon as removed from oven. Turn loaves on side to cool. This recipe makes 6 medium-size loaves.

For a coffee loaf which is delicious toasted, roll a loaf-size portion of dough into a long rectangle as wide as the length of the pan. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar mixed with ½ teaspoon instant coffee. Roll as for cinnamon rolls, but instead of cutting, roll into long rectangle again. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar mixed with ½ teaspoon cinnamon. Roll, seal ends and place seam-side down in pan. Proceed as with plain loaf for baking.

Note: Vanilla sugar can be purchased in sealed packets or can easily be prepared at home by simply keeping four or five vanilla beans buried in two cups sugar in a tightly closed glass jar. Replace the amount of sugar used each time until the beans become dry and begin to lose their aroma. They can be split and the seeds scraped out to mix with the sugar or boiled in milk to get the last bit of flavor when making custard, rice pudding, ice cream, etc.

COOKED POTATO STARTER

First prepare the following ferment:

4 tablespoons corn meal (white or yellow)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 ½ teaspoon sugar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 cup milk

Mix the corn meal, sugar and salt with the cold milk until smooth and free from lumps (use fresh or homogenized milk). Heat to the scalding point, stirring constantly. While still hot pour into an enameled or stoneware container which can be covered tightly. Keep in a comfortably warm place (about 80º F.) until the mush ferments and becomes quite light. This will take about four days in winter, but perhaps only two in warm, humid weather.

Stir the mush at least once a day. At first the liquid will separate and rise to the top. Then, as the fermentation proceeds, the settlings will rise up through the liquid until the whole mixture is uniformly spongy and the bubbles can be seen working to the top. When the ferment has reached this stage prepare the following:

3 medium-size potatoes
1 quart water
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt

Cook the potatoes in the water until tender. Drain off the water. If too much has boiled away add more water to make 3 cups of liquid. Put potatoes through food mill or sieve, then combine with the 3 cups of liquid, sugar and salt. When this mixture has cooled to comfortably warm, stir in the ferment. This should be done early in the day as the mixture should now stand in a warm place for several hours. Stir it down each time it becomes foamy. Then store in a covered 2-quart glass jar in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 days to ripen before using. Stir or shake until thoroughly mixed each time before removing a portion of the starter. When the amount has been reduced to about 1 to 1 ½ cups add this to a newly prepared mixture of potatoes, potato water, sugar and salt and proceed as before.

From Breads and Coffee Cakes with Homemade Starters from Rose Lane Farm by Ada Lou Roberts, Hearthside Press Inc., 1967, which has eight other recipes using this starter.

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