Stollen? No, that was last year, Christopsomo is our Christmas bread this year
This is one recipe I’m not giving away free – you’re going to have to wait for the book.
It is the family recipe of one of my Greek customers. Her brother used to make it and send it over to her from Greece but one year it arrived in small pieces and three weeks late. Customs & Excise decided that it was so heavily spiced it must be to confuse the sniffer dogs! So she asked if I could replicate it.
I got a hand-written recipe that measured flour by the kilo, olive oil by the coffee cup and orange juice by the glass. Sorting that out was the easy part. But then, how do you convert a yeasted recipe to sourdough when the only liquid in the dough is olive oil? It does contain orange juice and brandy but that gets absorbed by the dried fruit.
Traditionally the bread is decorated with crosses and such. It wasn’t hard to resist going that route. But I also decided to avoid icing sugar snow and plastic holly and just to keep it plain.
The PArtisan Baker 
I’ll barter for it, a Turkish Cypriot bread for a peak at the recipe???
Now THAT is putting our friendship to the test
EEEEGAD!
Hey,
How come your wife Graciella emailed me the Cypus recipe? I think I’m being pressured.
Cajoled sounds nicer!
I’m thinking about it.
No pressure, really, (arm twisting!!!)
I just want to know how you did the trick with the leaven and the olive oil? I’ve said it before but you have some lucky customers, hope they damn well appreciate you! There is always beer here by the way, are you and Sue coming to Bath/Bristol in the New Year?
Hiya Zeb
Well the obvious answer is you have to introduce some flour and water and, to be honest, my third mix tomorrow (28 large loaves) is going to be another variation. I had to include a starter and then I decided to add pate fermentee which I shall be increasing the percentage of tomorrow (is that grammatical?).
We are probably going to be down your way end of Jan but very much a flying visit to see friends in Zummerset.