Lydia's Finnish Coffee Bread

I made finnish coffee bread a couple of times from a recipe I found on the Web using a bread machine for the mixing and rising part.

Then, Larry's daughter Margie made him some for his birthday and we asked her for the recipe that she used which is the official recipe that she got from her mother, and she got it from Lydia (Larry's mother)

I'm including the original recipe ingredients and instructions followed by my changes and bread machine instructions.

Bake 350° for 30 minutes

Scald 1¼cups milk
Add ½cup sugar
½cup butter

Cool down and add 1 pkg dry yeast

Add 2 eggs beaten
10 peeled and crushed cardamom seeds or 1 teaspoon powder
Add 3 cups flour to start 5½ total
1 teaspoon salt
Knead until smooth and elastic, let rise and knead again and make braids. After baking brush with a beaten egg, sprinkle with sugar and return to oven for 1 minute.

Bread machine version
Ingredient changes
No need to scald milk, just warm it in the microwave.
Scalding used to be necessary to kill bacteria and enzymes but since milk is pasteurized it isn't necessary. It's also said that it makes bread more tender but comes out fine without scalding.

Although it went against my initial reaction, I did use the ½ cup of butter but I did reduce the salt to ½ tsp of salt.

1. Put all ingredients in the bread machine in the order specified for the machine, on the dough setting.
2. When the dough cycle completes, remove, divide in half and then split each part into 3 equal pieces.
3. Roll into long strands (18") and braid strands into 2 loaves.
4. Put loaves on greased cookie sheet.
5. Let rise until doubled in size (30 min).
6. Bake at 350° 25 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and brush with a beaten egg, sprinkle with sugar and return to oven for 5 minutes.
8. Cool on racks.
   

Note: Using ground cardamom is much easier.