Santa Lucia Buns

 
In keeping with the "I want to be a better bread baker," I made another WW bread from Peter Reinhart's book.

Flipping through the book, I was attracted to this recipe because of the photo. The bread has this interesting spiral shape. It looks really good.

Peter Reinhart wrote that Santa Lucia day is a girl who was prosecuted for refusal to renounce her faith. Her day is celebrated every year on December 13th, mostly in Sweden. Though according to Wikipedia, it is also celebrated in Norway and other European countries. Wikipedia has a long article about Saint Lucy's history and it is a sad one so I don't feel like elaborating it here.

There are many different versions of this bread, depending on the country. Peter Reinhart's version is the Swedish one because it uses raisin, instead of currants.

The recipe itself is pretty similar to the other WW bread that I've made, except it uses oil, 1 egg, and more honey.

The method of the bread is the similar as well. It calls for making a sponge, biga, and a final dough.

Here is what the final dough looks like.

It is pretty small but it's because I made 1/2 recipe.

Shaping the dough after rising.

My shaping skills is not very good as I don't get the spiral all even.

You can see it more clearly here, after rising. The picture in the book has the bread thicker in the spiral area and thinner on the body. Mine is the opposite.

The raisins in the middle of each spiral is supposed to represent the eyes of Santa Lucia

Tasting impressions:
I love how the texture of the bread and how fluffy it is. It is a bit sweeter than the WW bread but not by much. I would have liked the bread to be a bit sweeter so I've been eating it with a bit of honey :).

Recipe: Whole Grain Breads