Christmas Bread

I was reading the New York Times the week before Christmas and found a delicious looking recipe for Cesnica, Serbian Christmas Bread. I still had some yeast in my cupboards, so I thought it would be a nice treat to make it and have it on Christmas day. I also REALLY want to become a seasoned bread maker since that’s really the only food I don’t make myself.

Anyway, Cesnica is a lovely braided bread with a coin cooked inside, and much like the baby in King’s Cake, whoever gets the coin, gets good luck for the year.

I’m not posting the recipe for a couple reasons. One, I can’t find it anymore. Two, it wasn’t one of my raging successes. It tasted really doughy and while it was good toasted, it’s not a light, fluffy bread you can consume on it’s own. It may very well have been my oven since it’s terrible, but who knows… I did want to blog about it, though, so I could show it off and because I spent a collective 6 hours, making the darn thing.

But first, I was really nervous about baking the coin so I took the question to Facebook. One of my friends suggested wrapping it in aluminum foil and another to just insert it after it’s baked. I also Google-d a bit and found that you can brush it with hot water and baking soda to sanitize it. So, of course, I did both.

I found a quarter (a Hawaiian one since that’s where my parents got married) and soaked it in baking soda and water.

And then I wrapped it in tin foil.

My brother ended up getting the good luck and when he unwrapped it, we found that the baking soda had totally corroded the quarter. Yuck.

And while we’re talking about Christmas (yes, it’s a month late), I thought I would show you my Christmas nails.

Aw, yeah.

And here are some pictures of the process. It’s useless to you, I know, but just humor me.

Ta-da! Too bad it didn’t taste as good as it looks. Nevertheless, I did eat my fair portion – heavily toasted, slathered in butter, and soaked in jam. It’s a Christmas miracle that I didn’t gain ten pounds over the holiday…

Tags: Cesnica, Serbian Christmas Bread, yeast