Prosciutto Parmesan Braid aka Meatbread

Bye Bye 2018 – Another Christmas is wrapped up and the countdown to 2019 starts in a little bit over 24 hours…I am ready for a New Year, I like New Beginnings and another chance of broadening my horizon to new opportunities.

Do you take inventory of the past 12 months at this time of the year? I always do, it just happens automatically and this year started off great, with a very unique birthday vacation to Vanuatu and closed off with a very happy life changing moment of adopting Luna (a 7 months old blue Heeler and if you know me, you know that there is no such a thing as too many animals around me, now we have a pack of 3 dogs and 1 cat) . There were also lots of great in-between moments – Mike’s daughter Vanessa moving to Seattle and spending more time with her, visiting my parents in Germany, Summer vacation in Lake Chelan and Long Beach, the long anticipated kitchen remodel is finally done, Mike’s yearly Fishlake birthday celebration and Dee’s successful heart surgery. My New Years resolution for the coming year will be fine tuning a few things such as spending more time with friends, working on my physical health aka working out, finding time to read a couple of books and writing more posts would be nice as well as taking longer vacation (instead of short one week vacations – I am not really re-energized after just a week off).

The last 3 months have been filled with some great moments, my friend Laura joined the “forever 29” club

a fun birthday celebration for Mike at Fishlake

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Oktoberfest (with real German Schweine- and Surhaxe/Ham Shanks) with the Sudores and Jetts at the Bounds home

Fun with the furry friends

Halloween

Thanksgiving with the family and finally a minute to take a photo of the masterpiece

The search for the perfect Christmas tree (which didn’t end at the tree farm but the tree lot around the corner haha)

Christmas blessings

and a bunch of good German food Ok lets talk about this blogs recipe – Prosciutto Parmesan Braid aka Meatbread! Meatbread was supposed to be the first recipe for my blog and here I am – 5 years later – finally posting it. This braid started off to be a sweet Challah type bread with Almond and Hazelnut filling but I turned it into a zesty version and no matter for which occasion I make it, EVERYONE loves it and asks me for the recipe and so I wanted to post it for a long time but never got around taking the right photos to really showcase the process and the outstanding outcome. I am still not happy with the pictures, I was thinking of something more artsy but I just didn’t want to wait another 5 years!

The original German name is “Hefezopf” – Yeast braid, so how did it change to Meatbread? I brought this zesty version to one of my team meetings and my colleague Melanie decided to name it Meatbread and since then everybody refers to it as Meatbread. You can fill it to your own liking and make it a vegetarian version with pesto or sun dried tomatoes and cheese of your liking, or you can fill it with different deli meats like salami, ham or peperoni, the combinations are endless. If you like a sweeter version mix almond flour, sugar and a little bit of water over low heat into a spreadable paste and brush it onto the dough strips (a thin layer so that it doesn’t get too sweet, 2 parts of flour to one part of sugar).

Prosciutto Parmesan Braid aka Meatbread

Ingredients:

For the dough:

500 grams flour
3 teaspoons instant dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
250 ml milk
2 eggs
1 tablespoon salt

For the filling:

15 very thin slices of Prosciutto
8 oz of Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons of Chinese hot mustard
pepper

egg wash for basting and coarse salt for the braid topping

Recipe:

Preheat oven to 380 degrees. Make sure all the dough ingredients are room temperature.
Mix the dry ingredients together, then add the wet ingredients. If you have a Kitchen Aid use the dough hook at medium speed until a ball forms that comes easily loose from the walls of the bowl and is clean and not too sticky. If its too sticky add flour by the teaspoon, if the dough is too dry and crumbly add a little bit of milk.
Put the dough into a clean bowl, cover with a towel and let the dough rest at a warm place (not hot, just warm and no wind) for approximately an hour or until the dough has doubled.
Once you dough is ready divide it into 3 even pieces and start rolling it into long flat dough strips, a little bit wider than a Prosciutto slice and a little bit longer to fit 5 slices of prosciutto with a little bit of space in between.
Now brush 1 tablespoon of hot mustard on each dough strip, then add the 5 slices of Prosciutto, top with 1/3rd of the cheese and crack some pepper over it. (Ignore that my photo only shows 4, I was short of Prosciutto ;-))
Now roll up the dough strips from the long site into a long roll, place them next to each other and start braiding. Transfer the braid to a parchment paper lined baking sheet, cover with a towel and let the braid rest of another 1/2 an hour.
Now brush the braid with the egg wash (just crack the egg and mix it up) and crack some coarse salt over the braid. Bake at 380 degrees for 25 – 30 minutes. If the braid starts darkening too much cover it with aluminum foil.
Let cool for 10 minutes, cut into slices and serve with butter! (Photo courtesy of Sam Sudore :-))