Classic Christopsomo - Christmas Bread

Lets start our journey to the various Greek Christmas and New Year dishes

with the traditional Christmas bread

Christopsomo, litteraly meaning "Christ's Bread", is considered a sacred tradition in most Greek Orthodox homes, and the care with which it is made is said to ensure the well-being of the home in the year to come. Only the purest and most expensive ingredients are used for this bread. There are different versions of Christopsomo depending on the area it comes from or on the family's traditions. Basically it is like the normal bread but with a lot of decorations on top. More often is decorated with a cross, made of pieces of dough, and whole walnuts

Ingredients (for a 22cm round pan):
4 cups of soft flour
25gr. of fresh yeast
2 tbsp of sugar
1 tbsp of butter
1 egg
1 tbsp of anise seeds
1 ½ cups of water, lukewarm
a pinch of salt
sesame seeds for decoration
whole walnuts for decoration, shells on
some oil for greasing

Method: 
In a large plastic bowl dissolve the yeast and the sugar in 1/2 a cup of lukewarm water. Add 1 cup of flour and stir until you have a rather thin dough. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and leave for 15 minutes in a warm place to rest and rise.

In the meantime boil the anise seeds with a small cup of water, drain and leave the seeds to cool down.

Get the dough back and add in the bowl the rest of the flour, the butter, the egg, the anise seeds and the rest of the lukewarm water and knead until you have a soft and elastic dough.

Grease a round oven pan of 22cm with some butter. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Keep some of the dough on the side and place the rest of it in the pan lightly pressing with your palms to smooth the surface out.

With the dough you saved make two long cordons and place them on top of the bread in a cross way (see photo on top). On each of the four tips of the cross and in the middle push one walnut and sprinkle with the sesame seeds.

Cover the bread again with a towel and leave it in a warm place until it doubles in size and expands in the bottom of the pan.

Put in the oven and bake for 35 minutes.

When the bread gets coloured cover it with some foil otherwise, because of the sugar, it will get very dark while it is baking and it won't look nice.