One of the culinary fixtures of Eastertime in Austria is the Osterkranz: a braided garland of sweet bread decorated with coloured eggs. This risen crown is a variation on the Striezel (sometimes called Zopf in western Austria), born from brioche dough and formed into a braid akin to a ponytail, a shape whose significance in Catholic folklore goes back to the story of Samson and Delilia, and in the Germanic world to tribal rituals and practices. The first mention of Striezel is to be found in an Upper Austrian cookbook from 1699, with a clearer attachment to Vienna established by the mid nineteenth century, though I cannot claim that this bread is really Austrian or even Germanic. After all, from the Czech vanočka to the Romanian cozonac, the Hungarian kalács, the Turkish çörek, and the Jewish challah, to Jerusalem and back Shabbat and holidays meals are enlivened and augmented by braided and enriched loaves of bread.
In Vienna, as well as in most of Austria, the most elaborate Striezeln were always bound up with and reserved for All Saints' Day when, going back to the nineteenth century, mourners would leave loaves of bread on the graves of loved ones or gift them to orphans and the poor. In Burgenland, Striezeln somehow became associated with love, with young boys gifting them to the girls they admired; in Styria, it remains traditional for godparents to bestow homemade Striezeln upon their godchildren (though what a toddler would want with a giant loaf of brioche-adjacent bread, I don't know). The Allerheiligenstriezel should be assembled from four to six interwoven strands of bread dough made from flour, milk, butter, sugar, yeast, salt, egg yolks, and raisins. Possible additional flavours include lemon zest and vanilla, while necessary decorations include coarse sugar, as seen in the picture above, and maybe sliced almonds. A slice of Striezel is best taken, by all accounts, in the afternoon with a cup of (I would assume) black coffee.
