With autumn rightfully setting in, the days getting shorter and the temperatures dropping, the thought begins to fly to the winter holidays. Waiting brightens our days, but it also brings us the excitement of the preparations... the emblematic product - the popular cozonac!
Cozonac is definitely the best known and most consumed dessert. In Romania, around 7 million cookies are sold every year for Christmas and about the same amount... for Easter, so a profitable season can depend on its success... and the success of our holidays!
About cozonac - short history
Fluffy, savory, sweet and aromatic, with raisins, nuts, cheese, chocolate or shit, symbol of the fundamental celebrations of Christianity, cozonac is actually a more special bread. The old cozonac recipe has been progressively improved. There are drawings dating back 4.000 years, which attest that the Egyptians knew how to make several types of leavened bread. Some breads were sweetened with honey.
Research carried out by historians has shown that in Antiquity the Greeks made a type of cake sweetened with honey and sprinkled with nuts, which was called "plakous". The Romans took over the method of using yeast from the Egyptians and Greeks. Thus they diversified and enriched the recipe for cozonac. They added to the dough, for example: eggs, butter or dried fruit.
By the time European nations began to form as states, this rich and sweet bread was already familiar to most continental cultures. Each people made the cozonac known in a specific way. The cozonac recipe, as we know it today, was consecrated by Europeans in the XNUMXth century.
What types of cozonac have been preferred over time on the Romanian territory
We Romanians prefer a fluffy and well-raised cozonac, kneaded with brewer's yeast. The fillings have always varied according to times and places, influenced mainly by the ingredients at hand.
The classic cozonac filling contained walnut or poppy seeds, sometimes hazelnuts and honey. The shit brought from the East was not everywhere and not everyone could afford it. It was imported, as it is today, and bought at fairs. Likewise brown, golden or large sultanas (raisins that are obtained from sultana grapes). Candied (candied) fruits were not made by the peasants at home and we don't really have the habit of adding them (compared to the Germans or Italians). Although dried fruits were common (cherries, cranberries, blackberries or apricots, plums and prunes), they did not make the list of common ingredients either.
Cocoa and chocolate are also products added quite recently, with the accessibility of imported products. And rum or vanilla essences are ingredients inherited from the communist era.
Flour – the main ingredient for a successful cake
As for the basic ingredient, flour, things have evolved here as well. From universal flour, currently 650, which was used in the old days, with time the tastes began to refine. Her place was taken by the 000 flours, 480or 550, whiter, stronger, with more gluten, extracted from the kernel of the wheat grain.
For more efficiency and productivity, traditional recipes are gradually being replaced by industrial recipes, based on mixes or premixes.
Seven Spices offers spectrum full of solutions for cozonac. For home producers, we recommend E-free flour "000 cake”, which can be purchased from chain stores Auchan.
For industrial producers, the product recommended in traditional recipes is flour Regina™, a strong flour, without Es, from which high-quality, fluffy and high-volume scones are obtained. Regina™ flour also lends itself perfectly as a base for premixes. The use of this special flour guarantees the constancy of the quality of the finished product.
The advantages of using complete mixes for cozonac from Seven Spices
For industrially manufactured cakes, there is the option of using complete mixes, which include all the powdered ingredients (flour, eggs, sugar, milk powder and flavors). It is only necessary to add water, fat (margarine or butter) and yeast.
In the case of using the complete mixes from Seven Spices, you benefit from:
– the advantage of faster and safer production;
– lower risk of errors (significantly reducing the number of ingredient dosages);
– constant products;
– smaller storage space;
– recipes and technological support.
Gamma Seven Spices includes three cake mixes:
- the cake mix, with the help of which cozonacs are obtained with a taste identical to that of traditional cozonac, a fine and uniform texture and a shelf life of 20 days;
- holiday cake mix, a mix with a good quality-price ratio, intended for mass production in large quantities; the finished products have, also in this case, a validity period of 20 days;
- light brownie mix, also intended for mass production, in large quantities, with a very good quality-price ratio and a recipe that reduces the amount of yeast and the fermentation time. This mix can be processed successfully by the traditional method. You will get a cake that keeps its freshness for a longer time than the usual fresh products.
Traditional cozonac recipes or modern reinterpretations
The globalization trends of recent years and the spirit of reinvention present in all fields, but especially in gastronomy, have made this traditional dessert start to break a little from the patterns and invite us to new sensory experiences.
A simple Google search returns over 40.000 shortbread recipe videos: from basic, simple recipes for beginners: recipes for the bread machine, fasting recipes, up to increasingly sophisticated variants: muffin with nutella and walnuts, viennese muffin glazed and syrupy with liqueur, with orange juice, with walnut and halva, Estonian shortbread, Russian, German... and anything else you can imagine.
Learn more about the types of flours in the following material: A new elite flour joins the COROANA™ range
Read on White Art and For Easter, half of Romanians will prepare cozonacii at home.
