Another great addition to the Breads of Easter playlist. This Armenian choreg will make the Easter Bunny come to your house for sure! It may look like other festive breads because making a braided loaf for festivities is traditional in many cultures. But don’t let its simple looks deceive you.
What sets this choreg apart is its flavour. The main spice that distinguishes this bread from others is mahlab. It is made from ground cherry pits. The taste is hard to describe as it is so unique. It can taste kind of almondy and sweet. The only other time I used this spice was when I made a Greek Christmas bread called christopsomo.
Other ingredients which I added were nigella aka onion seeds which also have a very distinct flavour. Also, ground fennel seed to tie it all together. I feel that the fennel seed really brings the mahlab and nigella together and rounds off the flavour of this bread.
There are sweet and savoury versions of this bread. This one is kind of in between. Although it has a fair amount of sugar it is not overly sweet and the spices while being super aromatic and sweet smelling are also on the savoury side. To make this a true sweet loaf you could skip the nigella seeds and perhaps increase the sugar by ¼.
Choreg can be shaped into various shapes. Swirls, snails, knots. It is usually made into many smaller rolls instead of being one large loaf. You can experiment and see what you like best. Make one batch and shape it into many different shapes.
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36 Comments
📖 Find the written recipe in the link below the video ⤴
🌾 If you would like to support my work click here ⤵
https://www.ko-fi.com/chainbaker
🔪 Find all the things I use here ⤵
🇺🇸 https://www.amazon.com/shop/ChainBaker
🇬🇧 https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/ChainBaker
🍞 Share your bread pictures here ⤵
https://www.flickr.com/groups/chainbaker/
Wouldn't this be poisonous? I thought that cherry pits contain lots of cyanide. Is it possible to exchange for sweet almond paste or flour? Looks good tho.
This texture reminds me of cinnamon rolls. Do you have a video on making cinnamon rolls? I could totally go for cinnamon rolls and a strong Turkish coffee ☕🥐
Love it. And just yesterday I told my gf that I'm gonna make easter bread but wasn't yet sure what to make exactly. Problem solved I guess 😀
I've never heard of mahlab before but it sounds quite interesting and like something that can be incorporated into other things like raisin rolls and such as well.
Some of the ingredients cannot be found in my area 😭. But I really enjoy watching you make them 😀
Mahlab is bitter if used in big spoon always use as little as 1/2 tea spoon in a standard recipe
the only thing I don't have is the mahleb…but I've got several afghan groceries les than 15 minutes away….failing that, a major Greek store not far from work….
If you say 7 minutes of hand kneading… how long does that translate to for a standing mixer?
How interesting…. the Greek version of this is called Tsoureki, almost the same sound as the Armenian one…. and the traditional version uses mahleb, as well as mastixa/mastiha… which is a natural gum resin from the mastixa bush and mostly cultivated on the Island of Chios…. these two breads, both made for Easter…or Pascha… and both braided and both using the same spice(s) which are rare in other dishes, must be related in my opinion….
Thank you for sharing… !!!
Beautiful, and unique! TY
Have you ever try Swedish saffron bun? Not an easter thing but a santa lucia bread. Might wanna check that out in deccember (I suddenly have a craving that's why I mentioning it. )
If I only had flour to make these :/
This is great!But we shouldn't call it choreg, that word is Azerbaijani for bread.Try "zatiki hats", its Armenian for easter bread.
Last month I bought some freshly ground mahlep powder when I was in Turkey, it is very popular and common to use them in their pastries. Even the name “ Çörek” is widely used. Now it is time to bake some Armenian version of Corek. Thank for the recipe.
Thank you for the great recipe. A few days ago I asked you help for my egg yolk Paska-kulich, I followed your videos and learnt alot👍
My ancestors traditional Easter bread
Just cooled my large braided loaf from this recipe. It is a very fluffy, tight crumb bread. Next bake will double the mahlab and ground fennel seed for a more pronounced flavor. next bake will be smaller braids as your demonstrated but the first try was a huge success with a sandwich
sized, beautiful loaf with a unique, subtle flavor. Toast it gently and it burns easily, I assume from the sugar content. Thanks!!
I am looking for Easter treats from different countries to try, so thank you for the recipe. These are very similar to Greek tsourekia and I know how to make those because I grew up in Greece where many of us learn how to cook and bake from a young age. How did you learn how to make choreg?
Love your channel and your recipes! Would be great to see you make jidase (jidáše), sweet bread glazed with honey, the traditional pastry made at Czech Easter.
I'm making this baby for Easter Weekend. Just bought the mahlab today from a turkish grocery store here in Rotterdam. Really looking forward to tasting this alternative to challah!
Fabulous bread. Didn't have all seeds so I used fennel, caraway, sesame both roasted and black, and cinnamon.
Oh!!! I'm Armenian and though I love your whole channel, it's really exciting to see this. 🙂 Thanks for all you do
Hey Charlie! The temperature in my kitchen too hot and humid, that the fermentation is extremely fast and rapid, and its too hard for me to get the dough right. In most of my previous bread attempts the bread was not rising in the oven, I guess due to this reason. Any suggestions? Do you think proofing in an air conditioned room might help?
In Turkiye we call this "Paskalya çöregi" (basically Easter Buns), my mother used to bake it time to time when I was a child, but I did not know it was originally an Armenian recipe. I love the smell during the baking process. Thank you and thanks Armenian chiefs.
We have the same Easterbread in Greece, we called it Tsoureki
Hey, ChainBaker, I've got a question if you ever get around to this comment.
I've made these twice now, over the past 7 months, they're a bit harder to make than plain bread so I only do them on occasion. However both times I've tried adjusting the liquid percentage and both times I've gotten a veeery sticky result. I'm using around 10.5g protein "bread flour" It's listed as bread flour, but I feel like it's more all purpose with such low protein content.
I've tried 50g sugar with 60g butter (turned out great, but it was impossible to knead) and then today I tried 30g sugar with 50g butter, and yet still it took around 30-35min of hand kneading to get it even remotely combined, let alone looking like my normal bread doughs, I also adjusted the milk to 95g and eggs to about 140g, with 400g of flour. Do you know if this could be down to the butter, the flour or perhaps both? Should I try lowering the liquid ratio even further?
coming from an armenian, you absolutely nailed the texture! we always try to achieve that “stringy” texture when you pull it apart
Thank you for sharing
Thank you so much!!!! for you channel, instructions, recipes and sharing your knowledge!
extremely important for us!
Just made a batch of these. Absolutely peng!
Thank you. Plan to try it!
In Greece we have choreg too but we spell it like τσουρεκι / tsoureki. It is a traditional bread for Easter as in Armenia. I really like to eat it all year long.
Today Easter week begun and tomorrow I will make tsoureki with my mother. Cant wait to eat them😁
❤👍🙏🏻
I'm Armenian and this is my favorite pastry. "Chor" means "dry" in Armenian, hence the name of the dry pastry "choreg"
The color and the texture are amazing. It could benefit from longer fermentation though, such asd 12 to 24 hours.
Im making this for an English proyect in my high school, we needed to choose a country make an exposition and bring traditional food, i chose Armenia so im making this ❤