Leopard bread

Ingredients for 6 servings:

• 2 points dry yeast
• 1 ½ kg white flour
• 750 ml milk, warm
• 200 g sugar
• 200 g butter, melted
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp cocoa (instant cocoa)
• 2 cl rum
• 2 egg yolks

Instructions

Working time approx. 20 minutes; Rest time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 2 hours 50 minutes

Smart, funny bread that everyone loves

In a large yeast dough bowl, mix all the dry ingredients except the cocoa powder and cocoa powder. Warm the milk, then add the butter, rum, and egg yolks and mix well. Combine the dry and wet mixtures well and beat the dough (in a food processor or with a wooden spoon) until thick bubbles form. Cover the bowl with a towel and let the dough rise for one hour, until it has at least doubled in size. Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Shape 3/4 of the dough into 16 balls, cover, and let rest. Meanwhile, divide the remaining 4 pieces into 4 pieces again. Quickly knead one piece with the cocoa powder until it forms its colored dough. Once it is very dark and barely marbled, divide it into 8 balls, cover, and set aside to rest. Knead the remaining dough with the instant cocoa powder. It won’t be as dark. If it’s too dry, add three drops of milk—no more, no less. Form this dough into 8 balls and let everything rise in a warm place for 20 minutes. Now line a large loaf pan with baking paper. After the resting time, shape the lightest of the darker doughs into thick, longer dough snakes. Roll out the eight very dark dough balls to the length of the dough snakes and about 8 cm wide. They can be very thin. The dough snakes are then neatly rolled into the thin dough sheets. Now moderately roll out 8 thick balls of the white dough and wrap the wrapped dough snakes in them. The remaining eight balls are formed into dough snakes, which are the same length as the snakes already made – experience has shown that about 3 cm shorter than the loaf pan is best. Now line the base with the empty dough snakes, in the next row place one filled, one empty, and another filled. Now fill the dough snakes alternately as you like. It is important that no filled dough snakes are placed on top at the end. Then, cover the pan and let it rest for 30 minutes until the dough has risen again. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius (320 degrees Fahrenheit) and bake the leopard bread on the middle rack for 20 minutes. Then increase the temperature to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit) and bake for another 40 minutes. Melt some butter with the sugar and brush the bread immediately after baking. Let it cool and then carefully cut into 2 cm thick slices.