Christmas Eve Day

The weird thing about Christmas Eve is that you think it's going to be so fun, but then you wake up and realize you have 12 hours to fill until it is actually "eve". We were supposed to spend the day delivering chocolate pretzels to friends, but there are still 8 bags of chocolate pretzels in the van, so that's how that worked out.

I just didn't want to go anywhere.

So, we made braided bread. My mom made braided bread every year when I was growing up. She wrapped it up in Saran wrap and then fold a square of wrapping paper around it and popped on a bow. Then we (the kids) delivered it to the neighbors. I love that memory.

So now I do it too. Some years I make bread for everyone (30 loaves last year). Other years I make just enough for family. This year I made one batch, which makes 6 loaves. Just enough for the 5 families that live here and one for our Christmas Eve dinner.

So here's the recipe:

Mom's Braided Bread

Scald 3 cups milk with 1/2 c butter (cut up). Do this over medium heat. In this instance, "scald" means to heat until the butter is melted in the milk.

Pour this into a BIG bowl and add 2 cups cold water. Let it cool until it feels lukewarm.

Add 1/2 c sugar and 2 Tbsp salt. Stir that until it dissolves.

Then add 4 Tbsp yeast and stir it with wisk.

Add 5 eggs, but just drop them into the mixture without whisking them first. Don't stir them in, just let them be while you let the yeast bubble...about 5 minutes.

Now start stirring in 13 cups flour. Just start stirring it. It will look gloppy. Don't worry.


Once you've got that in, put 1 cup of flour out on the table and empty your dough onto it. Start kneading and keep going until the flour on the table is a part of your dough. Get 1 more cup of flour and do this again. Just keep kneading until it incorporates in.

Now sprinkle a little flour in your bowl and plop your dough in and cover it with a dishtowel. You may want to scrape the sides of the bowl out a bit first. Whatever.

Let it rise until it doubles in size (1 hour). Then take off the cloth and punch it down. Cover it up again and let it rise for another 1/2 hour.

Sprinkle your table with some flour so it won't stick and smoosh your dough down a bit. Now take a big knife and divide it into loaves. You'll need 12 sections. I dip the sticky ends of each section in flour to keep them from sticking to stuff. Then put the dish cloth over the sections and wait 10 minutes.

Now you can start rolling each section into a long rope. The dough should hang together well.

Now do this:

Then you take the far right "arm and weave it under, over, under and then the far left one does the same thing in the other direction. It's not as hard as it sounds. Just try it. It is bread, after all, and even if you end up with a weird looking knot, it's going to rise and taste wonderful just the same.

So you should end up with this:


Put two loaves on each cookie sheet, preferably with a silpat underneath, or coat with a little cooking spray. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes. I think it's best to put a sheet of tinfoil lightly over the loaves for half of that time so they won't get too brown.

When you pull them out of the oven, brush them with a little egg wash or butter. Let them cool, wrap with saran, a square of wrapping paper, and slap on a bow.

Deliver!