Holidays

Here is the recipe for Cheese Braids! I hope all of you enjoy them as much as we do and the pictures below show bits and pieces of them in the making.

Easter Morning Cheese Braids

1 recipe sweet roll dough as follows:

1 pkg. dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup lukewarm milk (scalded then cooled)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 t. salt
1 egg
3 1/2 to 4 cups all purpose flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water in large bowl. Stir in milk, sugar, butter, salt, egg and 2 cups of flour. Beat until smooth. Mix in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover; let rise in warm place until double, about 1 1/2 hours.

Meanwhile, prepare cheese filling.
2 pkg. 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 egg
4 T. sugar (1/4 cup)
1 t. vanilla

Beat them together until smooth.

When dough is ready, punch down. Cut into two even portions. Roll out to 16″x 8″ rectangles on two greased cookie sheets. Spread filling down center third of rectangles. Cut rectangles from the outside to the edge of the filling on a slight diagonal in 1″ strips on both sides. Cross the top right strip over cheese, then the top left. Continue this process, overlapping strips from left to right to cover cheese.

Beat an egg with 1 T. water. Brush the braids. Let stand for 30 minutes. Then bake at 350 for approximately 30 minutes.

Remove from sheets onto wire rack, cool, wrap with saran. May be made ahead and frozen.