Braided Yeast Heart

If you are looking for a yeast bread recipe that only requires you to throw together ingredients, look no further. This braided yeast heart may be just for you. No pre-doughs necessary, no extra steps, just letting yeast and time do its magic. But be warned, this recipe requires a total of roughly 8-9 hours. You will have little to do during this time, but you will need to plan accordingly. I even allowed for more time, I first let the dough rise for 6 hours and then placed it already shaped to a heart in the fridge overnight before baking. I was curious, would I taste any difference? I already have a braided yeast bread recipe on my blog that does require pre-doughs, would this recipe be just as good if ingredients are thrown together?

The answer is, depending on what you are looking for. This dough is slightly denser than my other recipe. My hubby said was the best yeast dough he has tried from me. So if you want a very lightly sweetened yeast bread that can be shaped in many different styles, this recipe is for you. You will need to invest time at the beginning when you weigh the ingredients, then you will need a few minutes to stretch and fold the dough after three hours of rising and then the shaping probably takes the longest. Other than that your machine, the yeast, and your oven will do the rest. If you plan on doing the entire process in one go, plan about 8-9 hours for the total. As stated, most of it is waiting time.

It may not look like it, but I decided to braid with five strings this time. Have you ever tried that? I wanted to accept this challenge. Mind you, I usually need a very slow-paced tutorial, most videos are too fast for me. If you don’t mind, you can check the braiding tutorial from Nadja. I thought I had gotten the hang of it, but as you may see, it didn’t turn out perfectly. But I decided to shoot pictures of this anyway. Because I firmly believe that looks are not everything. Yeah, maybe the braiding didn’t work completely, but who cares? The yeast bread will just be as delicious and the most important is anyway that it was made with a lot of love.

Credit: Little kitchen and more (in German)

Print Recipe

Braided Yeast Heart

Prep Time: 1hr plus 7 hours for rising – Cooking Time: 30min – Total Time: 8hr

This braided yeast heart is made with very little yeast and thus requires very long waiting times. You will, however, be rewarded a very tasty yeast bread at the end.

Ingredients

• 260 grams of milk
• 500 grams of all purpose flour
• 25 grams of regular sugar
• 10 grams of honey or molasses
• 10 grams of salt
• 7 grams of fresh yeast or 1.5 grams of active-dry yeast
• 1 egg
• 70 grams of cold butter
• 1 egg for egg wash
• Optional: coarse sugar or sliced almonds for sprinkling

Instructions

1

Slighty heat the milk until lukewarm. Weigh all ingredients until and including the first egg into a large kneading bowl. Knead on low for 3 minutes. Then knead on second lowest setting for another 3 minutes. Add the cold butter in small chunks and knead for another 6 minutes until you have a smooth, yet sticky dough. Let rise in a bowl covered with a damp kitchen towel for 3 hours. After the three hours stretch and fold the dough, you can watch a useful video here. Then let rise again covered for another 3 hours.

2

After the 6 hours either braid two normal braids or make two with five strings. Feel free to shape in whichever way you see fit. If you are making a braided heart, I recommend weighing each string for them to weigh the same. I went for 2 braids with 5 strings, so I had 10 strings total, which were each about 95 grams. You can find a video if you want to braid with 5 strings here. It helped me to think of this as a two-step process. First step: cross your hands and take the outer strings, one will go to the total opposite direction, the other will be placed in the middle. Step 2 is then to braid the middle one with the one on the left. If needed, google further instructions. Shape your two braids to a heart. Then you can either have it rise covered for an hour at room temperature or you may cover tightly, place on parchment paper and chill overnight in the fridge.

3

Once ready, preheat oven to 210 degrees Celsius, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse sugar or sliced almonds. If you chilled your heart overnight, you can transfer it directly to the oven on a baking sheet, it doesn't need to come to room temperature. Reduce heat to 190 degrees and bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown. As always, yeast products taste best on the day made. If kept airtight, it will keep for a few days.