Cozonac

Kozunak [ kozo'nak ] ( Bulgarian козунак / kozunak; romanian; Cozonac ) is a sweet cake bread of the Romanian and Bulgarian cuisine.

It is a traditional holiday pastry that is cooked in Bulgaria and in Romania at Easter to Christmas, New Year and Easter. It is similar to Italian panettone, but differs from it by the shape and by the large number of varieties.

Kozunak is made from a yeast dough with milk, sugar, eggs, butter and raisins. In Bulgaria, the dough can be additionally added lemon zest. In Romania, the recipes vary in different regions: Instead of raisins also Rahat, grated orange or lemon peel, hazelnuts or walnuts, vanilla or rum are added.

Very common is also a variant recipe with a filling of ground walnuts: given the dough is rolled out flat, spread with filling and rolled before baking into a roulade - in the baked bread, the filling can be seen when it is carved a spiral.

In the cultural initiative "Café d'Europe " of the Institute of European Regions ( IRE) during the Austrian EU Presidency 2006 Kozunak was presented as a Romanian Post.