German braid by Shelley

Today I have a guest post by Shelley on making German Braid2/3 cup Sugar
2 tsp. salt
4 1/2 tsp. yeast (2 packages yeast)
2 eggs
2 sticks softened butter
1 cup water
1 cup milk
8 1/2 cups flour
3 TBSP oil
Filling ~1 stick butter melted
1 cup sugar
3 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
Icing ~
1 stick melted butter
1/2 bag powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp milk (can add more if needed)
2 tbsp pecans
3 cherries

Combine Sugar, salt and yeast in a bowl. In a microwave safe bowl combine butter, water and milk. Heat for 2 minutes. Test this by sticking your finger in it. If it is too hot for you finger then it is too hot for the yeast. Mix liquid ingredients with the dry. Add to eggs and mix well. Since I mix this by hand I add 6 cups of flour and mix well. This will give you an extremely sticky dough. Now add 2 1/2 cups of flour. (I always put some of the flour on my hands) Knead the flour into the dough. Your dough will come together and still be sticky. You are going to want it sticky. If you have too much flour it will be too heavy. Remove dough from bowl and wipe out the bowl and pour in 3 tbsp oil.

Roll your dough in the oil and cover the bowl with a hand towel. Let rise until double in size. (roughly 2 to 3 hours)

Punch dough down and let rise again until doubled in size.

Seperate into 2 sections.

Take one section and split into 3 pieces. Roll out each section with a very small amount of flour. Pour a little of melted butter onto dough and spread out evenly over the dough.

Now sprinkle your sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg over the dough. Don't go too heavy this mixture will need to go on all the dough to make two braids.

Roll up your dough. If you want to make these into cinnamon rolls now is the time.

Cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces and put into a pan. Otherwise you need to lay this long piece of dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Continue to do the other two pieces and then braid together.

Let this rise at least 45 minutes.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Once the braid is done and cooled top with Icing and pecans and 3 cherries!