• Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

To Make Dough

• To a large microwave-safe bowl, add milk and microwave until warm. (If it is hot enough to burn your finger, it is too hot for the yeast.) Temperature should be no hotter than 110℉.
• Add yeast and sugar to warm milk. Mix to dissolve yeast and sugar. Let bloom for 2 minutes. If mixture blooms and looks foamy, proceed. Yeast is healthy and alive. If no foam appears after 2 minutes, yeast is dead, and you have to redo the previous steps with new yeast.
• To the milk mixture, add the egg, butter, flour, and salt. With a mixer or by hand, mix until a shaggy dough forms.
• If you are using a mixer, switch to your dough hook attachment and let mixer mix until dough is smooth and elastic. Dough should no longer be sticky. If you are mixing by hand: Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead dough until it is elastic and no longer sticky. This should take about 10-15 mins by hand.
• You can test if your dough has been kneaded enough using the window-pane test. To do test, take a small piece of dough and stretch it out thinly between your fingers. If you can see light though the dough without it breaking your dough is ready to proof. If the stretched piece of dough breaks, it needs more kneading.
• Once dough is smooth and elastic, using your bench scraper, form the dough into a ball. Oil bowl you made dough in. Add dough ball back into bowl, and roll dough ball in the oil. Cover and let rise in warm place for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size. I put the dough in my oven lukewarm. (See bakers notes*)
• Once dough has doubled in size, punch dough down. Cut the dough into even halves. *NOTE* You can use a food scale to divide the dough more accurately. Dough makes 2 braids.

For Cream Cheese Filling

• To a medium bowl, combine all filling ingredients, except the berries, and beat until smooth. Set aside.
• Roll one half of the dough into 12 by 9 rectangle and place on parchment lined cookie sheet. Cut the top edges off the dough and two small triangles from the bottom of the dough. Spread half the cream cheese mixture in the center of the dough, top with the berries, then cut diagonal slits 1 inch apart down both sides of the dough. Fold ends on top of mixture, then crisscross each slit over one another forming a braid design.
• Repeat previous steps for the second braid.
• Sprinkle each braid with granulated or decorative sugar. Cover with greased plastic wrap. Let rise in warm place for another hour or until double in size.
• Once both braids have doubled, preheat oven to 325℉.
• Bake at 325℉ for 25mins or until golden brown.
• Let rest on pan for 10mins before serving. Serve warm and Enjoy!!