![Tsoureki (2)[3]](https://www.hefe-und-mehr.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Tsoureki-23.jpg "Tsoureki (2)[3]")
When we drove through snow- rain to meet with the family on Easter Sunday, I mused if todays Easter weather was colder then on Christmas Eve or not. But good weather or not we had a broad mixture of rolls and a greek easter braid with us.
The idea of baking tsoureki I had in mind since a readers question last year. And so I did some research and found the braid in many different forms and different ratios of ingredients. But two ingredients were a stable: Mastix and Mahlep.
Mastix is the resin of the pistachios tree, while mahlep are cherry pits form Prunus mahaleb. While grinding the spices to powder I realized that mahlep has an similar aroma than tonka beans: almond like and very delicious. As always, the flavours of a spiced bread are depending more on the spices then on the aroma of the preferment. But using a preferment is useful anyway, as it helps to strengthens the gluten network as well as improves the shelf life.
We enjoyed this greek Easter Bread with its fluffy crumb and almond like flavours very much.
The Ausgezogne is a south german deep fried cake which is similar to a doughnut but instead of a hole there is a very thin dough layer in the middle. Sometime this cake is called Knieküchlein (literally knee cake), too as the thin dough layer can be archived by stretching the dough over the knee. But it can be stretched by hand, too, and is very similar to forming pizza dough.
A small part of a comment caught my attention: the word “Pottweck”. I asked for a description and got a very detailed explanation from Jürgen. 
Finally I can post the first recipe in the upcoming post series of “regional breads” and can tell you how I came to this idea.
I love “Hörnchen” the halfmoon shaped pastry made of sweet challah or brioche dough since my childhood. And since I made the delicious 
I get the question for a sweet yeast dough without egg, milk or wheat regularly. Depending on the dietary restrictions I sent the readers to 
When I stroll over the Christmas market I’m often wondering about the enormous prices for little helpings of Schupfnudel, fried mushrooms or molten raclett cheese. And so I’m little tempted to spend my money there. But what I take with me this time was an inspiration for “Handbrot”. The name means literally hand bread and is a pieces of bread dough filled with Cheese, bacon or mushrooms. The versions sold on the cologne Christmas market where baked to pale for my liking and the dough contained surely to much yeast, but while looking on the breads a recipe started to appear in my mind.
The idea for this rolls started when I pull a nearly forgotten glas with Pâte fermentée from the fridge saturday night. I planed to prepare some sunday morning rolls and so I added some spelt flour (white and and whole grain) for the nutty flavour and egg yolk, butter and milk for a soft crumb. Together with the fermented dough this promised to yield rolls with a deep, complex flavour.