Easter Bread

Most countries, which celebrate Easter, have their versions of sweet Easter bread. In Bulgaria it is called kozunak and the recipes are probably as many as the households :) Over the years I've tried at least a dozen recipes, last year I even took pictures and planned a posting, but never came down to writing it.

Today I improvised with a recipe and a form and I am quite happy with the result, so I am writing it down to have it on the blog:

Ingredients:

• flour 300 g
• 6 g fresh yeast
• 1 egg
• 70 g water
• 90 g milk
• 30 g sugar + 20 g brown sugar for dusting
• 30 g olive oil or melted butter
• 100 g mixed dried tropical fruit

Preparation:

Prepare the dough as usual, this time I used my mixer. Leave it to rise covered in a warm place for an hour or so. Then divide the dough in four parts, spread each part, place your filling, roll and twist. Pleat the four pieces to form a round bread. Place in a baking form and leave to rest for an hour. 

Once the bread has rested and increased its volume, brush with egg-wash and dust with brown sugar. Bake for 35-40 min at 180C in a preheated oven.

This recipe is low on sugar and butter, as I've been trying to keep our consumption of processed sugar to a minimum, but it is still quite tasty and delicious. I intend to experiment further with proportions, so I envision a lot of Easter bread baking in our house :)

My husband eats kozunak with milk, but I love it with my morning coffee. Can't wait for morning to come and to have another piece of Easter bread with my hot coffee, while I do my Duolingo German lessons.

Warm Navy Zip-up Hoodie

My fourth Make Nine project for this year - a zip-up hoodie for husband. 

The fabric is warm sweater knit in dark navy and the pattern is Apollo hoodie by Sinclair Patterns - a pattern that had been in my Make Nine list for a couple of years and which i finally decided to try.

Like my own Lotte by Sinclair Patters, which  I made previously this year, I changed so much the visuals of the pattern, that I wouldn't be surprised, if the designers couldn't recognize it themselves :)

The major mods I introduced are the solid color of the front and the sleeves and the zipper at the front. I also added outer pockets, which are copied from a Burda men's hoodie I made last year and I also tweaked a bit the size of the hood, as husband dislikes big and heavy hoods.

 

Pattern:  Apollo Hoodie by Sinclair patterns

Size: Regular 173-180 cm; 50; modified

Fabric: sweatshirt knit fabric, rib knit, cotton knit

Time to make: two weeks

Although this is not my first rodeo with men's hoodies, with this particular one I found myself going back to basics - I took notes from  my first hoodie for husband and used some of the techniques I had applied then, three years and ten hoodies ago :). I added pieces of fabric, where the hem rib meets the front zipper, I enclosed the end of the zipper in the hood and hid the seam of the hood inside the lining of the hood - small touches, which give more professional look to the garment, IMHO.

I had thought that the piece of fabric was big enough for a hoodie and a pair of joggers, but I was wrong. I do plan to buy more of the fabric and make husband the joggers, as he asked for them, but later in the autumn, as the season for warm lounge clothes is already over here.

A pair of green wood-peckers we saw in the park yesterday, where we took these pictures.

Alinsky Monastery March 2025

What a perfect day was it today for hiking! Sunny, warm, without being hot, quiet and with almost no wind. The beloved trail from the village of Plana to Alinsky monastery and back was completely empty and the only fly in the honey, a very tiny fly, was the mud - because of the cold and snow during the week the trail was quite slippery and muddy at places.

Amazing, there was even snow. It is definitely this week's snow, as there's no way there was snow there last week, when the temperatures were in the high 20es.

Hike info:

Date:  21 March 2025

Destination: Alinsky Monastery

Mountain: Plana

Total length: 13 km

Elevation gain: 200 m

Total duration (plus picnic and rests): 4 hours

Average difficulty: 3 / 10

Me-made items, worn on this hike:

 

I: lingerie, Lotte Sinclair blouse, ankle warmers

Husband: men's boxers, Burda cargo pants, orange blouse

It is still early for the trees on Plana and though it was warm, the grass is still brown and the trees are still bare. The only flowers we saw were plenty of purple crocuses and green hellebores. 

We had our usual picnic on the hill above the church, with this wonderful view to the snowy peaks of Rila - who wouldn't hike for 13 km to have a lunch with such a view :) !

One of the big attractions of this route for me in springtime is the crisp clear view to Rila. This scenery never gets old!

Easy Olive Baguette

It's been a couple of years now, that we almost don't buy bread at home - I prefer to make it myself. This gives me the freedom to experiment with various types of flour, recipes, forms and additives. Today's recipe is one of the variations of my usual bread recipe, but with a twist - literal and figurative :)

Ingredients:

• 300 g all purpose flour
• 200 g lukewarm water
• 7 g fresh yeast or 3 g dry yeast
• salt, sugar or honey, oregano
• two tbsp olive oil
• pitted olives

Preparation:

Activate the yeast with some of the water and the honey. I add a small teaspoon of honey in the water and stir, until the honey and the yeast have dissolved. In a bowl measure the flour, add salt and oregano, mix. Add the yeast and the rest of the water, mix everything well and thorough, until the entire flour is absorbed. At this stage I do not add the olive oil. 

Leave the dough covered to rest and rise for 30-45 min in a warm place (I put my bowl in the oven with the light on). When the dough has doubled, add the olive oil and fold the dough a dozen times, then leave again to rise for at least an hour.

When the dough has doubled again, spread it on a floured surface, cover it with the olives, cut into small pieces, then cut the dough into four and form four baguettes. I made mine by rolling the ends toward the center and enclosing the olives inside, then I twisted the roll a few times.

Cover the baguettes and leave them for the last time to rise. This recipe has no kneading, you need only time and patience. Once the baguettes have doubled again after an hour, brush them generously with olive oil and put the tray in a preheated oven at 250C for 15 min. I put a metal container with water at the bottom of the oven to get a crispy crust. After the 15 min are over, turn the oven temperature to 200C and bake for another 10 min.

These baguettes are so delicious, that you can snack with them directly like buns, or enjoy them with feta cheese, vegetable spreads or any other way you enjoy your bread.

Kokalyane Bachun

Spring in March is a strange animal - look at the weather forecast for the week at the end of this post :) Today was summer - hot, though quite windy and husband and I had a perfect long hike in the Lozen mountain. We started from Kokalyane, gradually climbed through forests and peaks to peak Bachun and then back to Pancharevo and from there to Kokalyane by the Pancharevo lake - a total of 18 km.

The trees need probably just a week to get into their spring mode, but the spring flowers are already here and in abundance of colors and species.

A view to Sofia - the strong wind blew the smog away and the air over the city is finally clear after a season of thick smog and clouds.

Hike info:

Date: 15 March 2025

Destination: peak Bachun

Mountain: Lozen

Total length: 18 km

Elevation gain: 550 m

Total duration (plus rest): 5 h

Average difficulty: 4.5 / 10

Me-made items, worn on this hike:

 

Husband: men's boxers, Burda cargo pants, Red Burda blouse

I: lingerie, Burda blouse, Sabrina Slims II

On the peak - the winds on the ridge were so strong, that I had to clutch at my hat to prevent it from being blown away. Luckily our route was through the forest, so we could hear the wind in the tops of the trees, but were completely protected from its powers.

We had our picnic on a meadow on the lee side of the peak, with the first beer for the hiking season :)

Vitosha's snowy peaks in the distance

Pancharevo lake

The first tree in bloom we've seen this year, adorned with plenty of martenitzi.

The forecast for the coming week - summer today, rain on Monday, snow on Tuesday with -6 during the night on Wednesday, gradually back to spring towards Friday :)

Lakatnik 2025

Last Friday we had our 5th in a row  March hike on the Lakatnik rocks. Lakatnik is a village with a train station in the gorge of the Iskar river, popular for its beautiful limestone rocks, carved by the mighty river on its way to the Danube.

The day was amazingly hot for early March, it was a workday and the place was almost empty - ideal for a peaceful and relaxed hike.

Hike info:

Date: 07 March 2025

Destination: Lakatnik Eco Trail

Mountain: the Balkans

Total length: 9.6 km

Elevation gain: 300 m

Total duration (plus rest): 3 h

Average difficulty: 3 / 10

Our visit to Lakatnik was a week or two earlier than usual, so the trees were still not in bloom, but some of the spring flowers were in abundance.

We climbed gradually up the trail to the plateau on top of the rocks, soaking up the view from above towards the picturesque gorge of the river

As usual, the dogwood trees are the first to come to blossom.

"Our" picnic spot - every year we have our lunch on this tiny piece of flat rock, overlooking the river and the mountains across.

The mountaineers' memorial

"Temnata dupka" cave - this time we were in a hurry to catch the train, so we only went near the entrance, without going further into the cave.

The rocks of Lakatnik this year had a big 40 m long martenitza, hanging from above - a temporary adornment, celebrating Baba Marta and the coming of spring, which I found quite nice.