Cozonac Recipe - Romanian Walnut Roll

Romanian cozonac recipe or Romanian sweet bread: this is the most traditional pastry in Romania, a soft yeast walnut roll with a sweet filling.

A simpler and delicious cozonac recipe for your Easter or Christmas table, you will love this Romanian sweet bread with walnut or dried fruit filling. Try other traditional festive recipes like Pasca, Boeuf Salad, or Sarmale.

Making sweet walnut bread was my grandmother's task when I was a kid. She was the only one in our family who would ever make them, and she would bake them for the whole family. Lots of them... So she did bake cozonac for everybody twice a year and nothing else ever.

Jump to recipe

• 🍞What is cozonac?
• 📋Recipe ingredients
• 🌰Filling variations
• 👩🏻‍🍳How to make yeast dough for cozonac?
• 🥚How to make the fillings for Romanian cozonac?
• 🥖How to form a cozonac?
• 🔥Rise and bake
• 🔊Tips for making the yeast dough
• ❓Recipe FAQs
• 🥐More sweet bread loaves
• 📖Recipe
• Cozonac Recipe - Romanian Walnut Roll

🍞What is cozonac?

A sweet, brioche-like bread consisting of a yeast dough made with lots of eggs or, even better, egg yolks and filled with nuts or other fillings.

Similar cozonac recipes are extremely popular in Romania, Moldova, and Bulgaria. It is always baked for Easter and Christmas. You can find similar sweet bread in other countries as well, countries like Hungary, Greece, Armenia, Turkey, Croatia and so on. For instance, Hungarian Beigli or Polish Makowiec.

📋Recipe ingredients

Ingredients for the dough:

• Dry ingredients: All-purpose flour, active dry yeast, fine sea salt, and icing sugar.
• Eggs: You will need 4 egg yolks to make the cozonac dough, but remember that you will need 3 of the egg whites to make the filling.
• Milk: It's preferable to use whole milk.
• Rum: It is optional and a matter of taste. It's traditional to add it, but I know plenty of folks (including myself) who don't like the flavor.
• Oil: Use a neutral-tasting oil like canola or sunflower oil. Traditionally, my grandma would use sunflower oil. Ensure it's neutral-tasting; not all brands are.

Ingredients for the filling:

• Those 3 reserved egg whites.
• Granulated sugar.
• Rum: Again, it is optional.
• Ground walnuts: As ground walnuts are not available where I live, I always grind them in the food processor.
• Dried fruit like raisins, currants, cherries, cranberries, lemon or orange peel (not too much of those two), etc.

Ingredients for the egg wash: One egg and a little milk

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

🌰Filling variations

• Dried fruit: A mixture of raisins, candied cherries, currants, even dates or figs. Lemon and/or orange peel can also be used; just make sure that you like them; they are not popular with many people and definitely not with kids. If you have leftover fruit or peel, bake the Orange Raisin Bundt Cake or the Egg White Cake. If it's around Christmas, definitely make our delicious and Non-Alcoholic Fruit Cake or Pumpkin Fruitcake.
• Other nuts: Hazelnuts, almonds, or a mixture of different ground nuts.
• Cocoa: Many people add 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder to the nut filling. It makes the filling darker and gives it a slight chocolate touch. Do use cocoa if you wish.

👩🏻‍🍳How to make yeast dough for cozonac?

Kneading without a mixer:

• Mix the wet and dry ingredients as well as you can.
• Start kneading the dough and do it for at least 10 minutes or until the dough is elastic and doesn't stick anymore.

Kneading with the stand mixer:

• Step # 1: Activate the yeast in a small bowl. If using instant dry yeast, mix that with the flour and only add the egg yolk mixture to the flour.
• Step #2: Mix egg yolks, lukewarm milk, and activated yeast.
• Step #3: Sift the flour into the mixer's bowl and add the yeast mixture. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, it will be very stiff at the beginning, but it will get softer in the end.
• Step #4: Add icing sugar, one tablespoon at a time, with the mixer kneading continuously. Knead for about 4-5 minutes more. The dough will become softer now.

• Step #5: Slowly add the oil. Keep kneading until the dough is elastic and doesn't stick anymore for about 5 more minutes.
• Step #6: Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave to rise in a warm place for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. If your kitchen is not warm enough, place the bowl in the oven and turn on the oven light. Just the oven light, not the oven.

🥚How to make the fillings for Romanian cozonac?

Steps #7 and #8: Egg white-walnut filling: Whisk 3 egg whites until stiff. Slowly add sugar and rum. Whisk until the mixture is stiff again. Carefully fold in the ground walnuts, do not over mix.

Alternative dried fruit filling: Chop 300 g/ 10.5 oz dried fruit and peel. This amount will be enough for both loaves of bread. If you only want to fill one piece of bread with dried fruit, halve the amount of fruit.

🥖How to form a cozonac?

There are two ways to form a cozonac: you can roll it (like my grandmother used to do) or you can braid it. Brading the cozonac is easy, so give it a try; the sweet bread loaves are prettier if formed this way.

Roll it:

• Step #9: Divide the dough in two. Roll the pieces of dough (one after another) on a lightly oiled surface, about 30 cm/ 12 inches long, 40 cm/ 16 inches wide, and 3-4 mm/ 0.13 inches thick.
• Step #10: Spread half of the filling on top and carefully roll the dough into a thick sausage starting from the shorter side closer to you.
  • If the filling comes out a little around the edges, try to clean that as well as you can manage. Place in one of the buttered loaf pans and repeat with the second piece of dough.

• If using dried fruit, scatter the chopped pieces on the rolled dough, then roll the cozonac.

Braid it:

• Step # 11: Divide the dough into four equal parts.
• Step #12: Roll one piece on a lightly oiled surface about 30 cm/ 12 inches long, 20 cm/ 8 inches wide, and 3-4 mm/ 0.13 inch thick.

• Step #13: Spread ¼ of the filling on top and roll carefully, starting from the longer left side. Repeat with a second dough piece.
• Step #14: Braid the two sausages together and place them in the prepared loaf pan.
• Repeat with the remaining dough portions.

🔥Rise and bake

• Step #15: Cover the pieces of bread with kitchen towels and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour and 15 minutes or until nicely risen. During the last 15 minutes of the rising time, preheat the oven.
• Step #16: Brush with the egg wash and bake for 15 minutes, then remove the pan of water from the oven.
• Step #17: Bake for another 15 minutes and check the color of the crust. It should be golden brown by now. Loosely cover them with aluminum foil to prevent the crust from getting too dark and too dry.
• Step #18: Bake for another 30 minutes (a total of 1 hour) until the cozonaci are baked through.

🔊Tips for making the yeast dough

❓Recipe FAQs