Neujahrsbrezel bread is a German, pretzel-shaped sweet bread typically made at the start of a new year. It's August and I'm not German, but a friend of mine has been bugging me every couple of weeks for several years to make it, and yesterday was the day. This entire, gorgeous, sweet pretzel was made for him. It was rich and tender, and the sugar sprinkled over the top made it sparkle.
I love making labor-intensive, beautiful yeast breads. It feels like play to braid, fold, twist and fill bread dough. On this site, you can find:
Cajun cheddar swirl bread
Bagels
Chocolate swirl buns
Cinnamon pull apart bread
Dutch crunch bread
Stromboli
Pita bread
Estonian Kringel
Yesterday I looked at several recipes for this bread and what I found were all pretty similar. If you make this, don’t be alarmed that the dough doesn’t rise as much as you would hope the first time around. I’ve made this twice, and each time I expect that the dough will rise high enough to fill my big glass bowl, but it doesn’t. Be patient and let it rise in a good, draft-free place for as long as 1-1/2 hours. After you punch it down and shape it, let it rise again for another 30 minutes or so. After the bread is baked, it is sweet and tender, and is lighter than you would expect.
I slightly modified the recipe I found on Butterbrot. My changes were to the overall shape (do a google image search and find a look you like) and I sprinkled sugar over the bread before it went in the oven.