Braided Easter bread

It is mainly the rising time that makes the preparation time long. A delicious and versatile recipe for the Easter breakfast.

Preparation

1. Before we start making the dough, first soak the raisins for 10 minutes in hot water. After that, let them drain and chop the nuts.
2. For the dough, heat the milk in a saucepan until lukewarm and add the yeast to it.
3. Put the flour, salt, sugar, egg and butter in a bowl (optionally from the machine). And start mixing. Add the yeast mixture little by little. Knead this for about 5 minutes with the dough hooks.
4. After this, divide your dough into 2 parts, one for the yellow dough; the other for the green dough.  From now on, you work with both parts separately.
5. Make a ball out of both parts of the dough and push it out by hand into a circle. On one part, sprinkle the yellow raisins over it; on the other, the pistachios. Knead both separately by hand for about 5 minutes until the raisins/nuts are well distributed through the dough. If you want to work with food coloring, you can add it now too. For this, put on a pair of gloves to prevent discoloration of your hands.
6. Keep kneading until you have a supple and elastic dough. Shape the dough into a ball again, dust them with flour and put both dough balls in separate bowls. Cover them and let them rest and rise for about 30 minutes in a warm place
7. After the first rise, push the air out of the dough.
8. We are now going to make the braided shape, for that, dust the counter with flour. Divide your 2 colors of dough in half. So you will work with 4 parts of dough.  
9. Roll out each ball into a strand of about 60 cm, (handy tip, this is already as wide as a kitchen cabinet). Once you have made these strands, you braid the strands together, so this is a 4-strand braid.
10. Now place your braided bread on a baking sheet and cover it with the tea towel to let it rise again for about 45 – 60 minutes in a warm place. The dough will then double in volume.
11. Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Melt the butter and brush the risen bread with it. Bake the bread in the preheated oven for 45 minutes until light brown and cooked.
12. Let the bread cool for about 15 minutes before you start cutting it.