Cozonac

Cozonac is a sweet, enriched yeast bread made with eggs, butter and milk, traditional across Southeastern Europe. It is baked mainly for Easter and Christmas in Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria and North Macedonia, where it is part of the holiday table.

History

The exact origin of cozonac is not documented. Some writers link it to Italian panettone, whose recipe may have reached Eastern Europe, though that connection remains a hypothesis. The earliest known written recipe appears in a Romanian cookbook published in Iași in 1841, and later Romanian books record versions with butter, rum, rose water or cocoa.

During the nineteenth century the sweet spread south along the Danube, mainly through Romanian and Hungarian influence. In Bulgaria, late nineteenth-century accounts describe it as a novelty of urban life, distinct from the traditional braided Easter bread kravay, and Bulgarian cookbooks began including it around 1895.

Today it is made across much of Southeastern Europe and sold commercially in bakeries and shops.

Culture

In Romania it is tied to Holy Week, especially Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday, and to Christmas and New Year. In Bulgaria and North Macedonia it is an Easter bread shared within the family. A simplified version without eggs or milk, called cozonac de post, is made during Lent.

Regional variants are numerous. Depending on the area, the dough may contain raisins, orange or lemon zest, walnuts, hazelnuts or vanilla, and fillings may be poppy seed, ground walnut, cocoa or rahat lokum. In North Macedonia, kozinjak is shaped as a braid, a reference to the Bulgarian word for hair. It remains a traditional dessert, though many families now buy it ready-made.