Romanian Sweetbread (MIT Style)

Ingredients for 4 loaves:

• 5 lb unbleached wheat flour (King Arthur)
• 2 lb granulated sugar (Domino's)
• 12 eggs
• 3/4 oz. (20-25 g) dry yeast (3 strips of Fleischmann's dry yeast for example)
• 1 qt. milk
• 1 lb salted butter (Shaw's salted butter)
• 1/2 lb unsweetened, non-alkalized cocoa powder (Hershey's cocoa)
• 6 oz. (200 g) dried raisins (Sun-Maid California sun-dried raisins)
• 1 lb unshelled walnuts
• 2 fl oz vanilla extract (McCormick Clear Imitation Vanilla Extract)
• 1 fl oz rum extract (McCormick Imitation Rum Extract)
• 2 fl oz lemon extract (McCormick Pure Lemon Extract)

Cooking

• Put the flour in a large, flat, and non-breakable dish. Put it on a warm surface (the stove after the oven is tuned on) so that it becomes warm.
• Mix the yeast with 4 tablespoon of lukewarm milk and a bit of flour; you should get a soft paste but not a liquid. Put it in a warm place and wait 15-20 min until it doubles its volume.
• Separate the yolk and the egg white for all eggs. Mix the 12 yolks with a bit of salt so the color gets more intense. Mix the eggs with 1-1/2 lb of sugar, adding sugar slowly until it dissolves.
• Mix 6 egg whites with a teaspoon of sugar until it starts to froth.
• Make the dough. Add over the flour:
  • The yeast mix in small bits so it’¡Çs evenly distributed
  • The yolk mix
  • The egg white mix
  • 4-5 teaspoons of lemon extract, 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
  • 1-2 oz. (50 g, 4-6 tablespoons) raisins
  • 1/3 - 1/2 qt. Milk, just enough so that all flour is mixed in
• Melt the butter and keep it warm
• Mix the dough while adding a few tablespoons of melt butter each time. The goal is to add all the butter to the dough. It usually takes 20-30 minutes.
• Cover the dough and put it in a warm place for 1-1-1/2 hours. During this time, it should approximately double its size.
• Make the filling:
  • Crush the walnuts
  • Mix them with 1/2 lb sugar, 3-4 tablespoons of cocoa, 4-5 teaspoons of rum extract, and just enough milk it becomes a thick paste
• Using a knife, divide the expanded dough into 8 equal parts. Flatten each part (by pulling, not pressing) to a rectangle with the same height and twice the width of the baking tray. Add the filling on top and roll it. For each loaf, take two rolls, twist them around each other, and put them in the baking tray. The tray should be covered with a thin layer of vegetable oil.
• Wait up to 30 minutes if the dough has not swollen enough. Spread on top a layer of egg white and then sugar.
• Bake in the oven at 350 F for approximately one hour. Start checking after 50 minutes. It is done when the dough stops being sticky, and the top gets a brown color. Remove the loaf from the tray while still warm and lay on one side to avoid flattening, as the loaf will still be soft. Wait for a few hours until the loaf cools down and becomes stiffer.
• Enjoy!