Duivekater: Sweet Dutch Bread Served at Easter with Lemon and Spices

Warm your milk to 35ºC (95F), and add the yeast, as well as 1 tsp of the sugar. Set this aside while you continue preparing the other ingredients. Be sure to use an appropriately sized container for this, because the yeast will foam as it sits.

Melt your butter. Do this over low heat or for a few seconds at a time in the microwave. You just want to melt it, you don't want it to boil or burn.

Zest your lemon.

Beat your egg.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the flour, remaining sugar, lemon zest, nutmeg and cardamom. Make a well in the center.

Pour the beaten egg into the well. Sprinkle the salt around the outside edge of the flour, making sure it doesn't land in the well. We need to keep the salt and yeast separate so the salt doesn't kill the yeast.

Next, add the milk/yeast/sugar mixture in the well, and with a dough hook, start mixing the dough together. Start on a low speed, so the ingredients don't go everywhere. After 5 minutes, add the melted butter, and continue mixing/kneading until the dough is no longer sticky. This should take approximately 10 minutes. You may need to stop your mixer and scrape down the bowl to make sure all the ingredients get incorporated. As your dough becomes a homogenous mass, you can increase the speed of the mixer. If your dough doesn't seem to be coming together, you can remove it from the mixer and on a lightly floured surface, knead the dough by hand until it's no longer sticky.

Shape the dough into a ball, and let it rise in a warm spot for an hour, or until it’s doubled in size.

On a floured work surface, with your hands, press out the excess air from the dough and shape it into an oval that’s approximately 30cm (12”) long. You can use a rolling pin to do this if you like.

Transfer the dough to a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Using a bench scraper or a knife, cut an 8cm (3”) slit in the middle of each end of the oval. This will create the 4 sections of the bread we'll stretch and roll to form the final shape of our loaf.

Next, gently stretch one section of the cut dough at a time so that it's long enough to curl, and curl it up (like a cinnamon roll) along the outside edge of the dough. The four curls you make, are what creates the bone shape of the loaf. Once you've made the curls, loosely cover the bread with some plastic wrap or a damp towel, and let it rise in a warm place for 45 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC (395F) non-convection.

When the 45 minute rise has finished, make your egg wash by whisking the 1 tbsp of heavy cream with the egg yolk.

Brush the egg wash over the entire loaf. Often times, duivekater loaves will have intricate cuts in them to make them look festive or pretty. If you'd like to do this, with a sharp knife, make your cuts after you apply the egg wash.

Bake your loaf in the oven for approximately 30 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 88ºC (190F). If it browns too quickly, you can tent the bread with some aluminum foil. You may also need to rotate your baking sheet if it's browning unevenly.In my oven, it baked for a total of 20 minutes, and actually came out a little darker than I wanted because I didn't check it soon enough, so pay attention to how your kitchen smells and if you think it's starting to smell like it might be done, take a look at it and check the internal temperature with a thermometer.