Nazuki

Ingredients

Dough

• 800 gplain flour
• 300 mlwarm milk
• or matsoni thinned with milk
• 150 gsugar
• or honey
• 150 gbutter, melted
• 3eggs
• 10 gdried yeast
• 1 teaspoonsalt

The spices

• 2 teaspoonsground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoonground cloves
• 150 graisins

To glaze

• 1egg yolk
• beaten with a little milk

To serve

• warm from the oven
• at Easter
• or from a roadside stall

Directions

1. Warm the milk to blood temperature. Stir the yeast and a spoon of sugar in. Let it stand until it foams up. Give it about ten minutes to foam. Put the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the sugar and all the spices.
2. Stir them together thoroughly. The spices must be evenly distributed. Make a well in the middle of the flour. Beat the eggs and add them in. Pour in the foaming yeast milk. Bring it together into a soft dough. Adding the butter is done separately. Knead the dough for five minutes first. Add it gradually rather than at once.
3. Butter added at the start slows gluten forming. Keep working and it comes back together. Kneading it takes real patience. Knead it for a further ten minutes. It should become smooth and elastic.
4. Work the raisins through the dough. Add them at the end of the kneading. Rising it takes a very long time. Put the dough in an oiled bowl. Cover it and leave it somewhere warm.
5. Let it roughly double in size. Give it at least two full hours. Divide it into four even pieces. Shape each into an elongated oval. Press it out gently with your hands. Set the loaves on lined trays. Cover them loosely with a cloth. Let them prove for about forty minutes. They should look visibly puffed.
6. Brush them with beaten egg yolk and milk. Brush it on generously and evenly. Brush it again halfway through baking. Heat the oven as hot as it goes. Bake them for about twenty minutes. A tone oven runs very hot indeed. Use a baking stone if you have one. Judging them takes a careful look.
7. Let them cool down for a little. They are sold and eaten warm there. Tear or slice them into thick pieces. Serve hot black tea alongside them. They keep two days in a sealed bag. Warm them briefly to revive them.

Technique

• The atlas gives Surami as the origin, but Surami is where the bread is famously sold today rather than where it comes from. Nazuki is an older and broader Georgian festive bread of Kartli, Kakheti and Meskheti; the roadside trade on the Tbilisi–Kutaisi road took off from the nineteen nineties. In Kartli it is the Easter ritual bread, standing in for paska — presenting it only as a roadside sweet inverts the tradition and its modern offshoot.
• The Georgian dictionary definition is precise and worth following: bread kneaded in milk, brushed with egg, and baked in a tone — the cylindrical clay oven, onto whose hot inner wall the dough is slapped. A tone cannot be reproduced at home; a very hot oven with a baking stone comes closest.
• Cinnamon and cloves are universal in the spicing, while cardamom is named by some sources and nutmeg and vanilla rest on a single baker’s recipe; the atlas gives the two that all sources agree on. Matsoni, Georgian yoghurt, is given as a component by one source only and is recorded as optional.

Substitutions

• Honey stands in for sugar and is documented in the older definitions.
• Matsoni thinned with milk replaces plain milk in one source’s version.

Variations

• It is a flattened elongated oval loaf, sometimes called bean-shaped, with a dark lacquered crust — the shape and glaze are how it is recognised.
• Work the raisins in at the end of the kneading, since kneading them from the start crushes them and stains the dough.
• Push any raisins that surface back into the dough as you shape it, since exposed ones burn before the loaf is done.

History

Baked in the village of Surami on the Tbilisi to Kutaisi road, where sellers line the roadside with fresh loaves.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nazuki?

Nazuki is a bread & pastry from Georgia: sweet spiced bread with cinnamon, clove and raisins, sold warm from roadside stalls. Baked in the village of Surami on the Tbilisi to Kutaisi road, where sellers line the roadside with fresh loaves.

How long does Nazuki take to make?

Nazuki takes 40 minutes plus rising of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes about 4 loaves. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Nazuki?

Yes, within limits. Honey stands in for sugar and is documented in the older definitions. Matsoni thinned with milk replaces plain milk in one source’s version.

What is the most important thing to get right in Nazuki?

Stir them together thoroughly. The spices must be evenly distributed. Make a well in the middle of the flour. Beat the eggs and add them in. Pour in the foaming yeast milk. Bring it together into a soft dough. Adding the butter is done separately. Knead the dough for five minutes first. Add it gradually rather than at once.