Romanian sponge cake (Cozonac)

Cozonac – Romanian sponge cake filled with nuts and cocoa

• 600 gr flour (strained the night before)
• 200 ml warm milk
• 150 gr sugar
• instant dried yeast- 10 G
• 7 egg yolks
• Lemon zest from half lemon
• 150 gr melted butter

Filling:

• 150 gr grounded nuts
• rum essence
• 2 egg whites beaten to foam
• bit of a milk

Oiling the sponge cake:

• 1 egg yolk mixed with a bit of milk
• a bit of brown sugar

1. Make it warm in the kitchen and close the windows. This recipe needs a lot of heat to grow nicely
2. The evening before, the flour is squeezed in a rim of 2 times and covered with a clean cloth.
3. Add a pinch of salt
4. Prepare all ingredients (leave at kitchen temperature 30 minutes before you start)
5. You start making a hole in the middle of flour.
6. Add yeast
7. Add yolks.
8. Stir until it is embedded
9. Start kneading (20 minutes)
10. Mix Sugar in hot milk. Pour a little over the flour mixture.
11. Add the melted butter  but not directly on the dough (put it in you palm first)
12. Knead 10 minutes.
13. Use your fists to knead. This makes the dough to take the air, and then grow up nicely.
14. Usually kneading is done for at least 30 minutes.
15. Let it grow on an warm place
16. Prepare the filling.
17. In the egg white add the crumbs, cacao and rum essence.
18. Also put milk and Nutella so that the filling is soft and easily spread on the sheets.
19. Prepare the forms by brushing them with a little oil and placing them on the stove to heat.
20. Flush the flour on the kitchen counter and grease the hands with a little oil
21. After growing, the dough is divided into 4 pieces.
22. Stretch one sheet and spread the filling. Roll the sheets so that the filler is inside.
23. Insert two sheets and then put them in forms.
24. Place the trays in an warm place, wrapped in clean towels, where they can grow.
25. After growing, place the trays in the oven, grill in the middle (attention, the sponge cakes will grow, so do not put the grill on the top ditch)
26. After baking, crush the dill with a yolk mixed with milk and sprinkle with brown sugar.
27. Leave 5 minutes with the grill turned on (I have a grill and grill to roast the cakes)
28. If you do not have grill, put the cakes as high as you can in the oven and put a tray of water underneath)