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Sieve the flour in a large bowl. Boil the milk together with sugar and add vanilla essence or other flavors. Pour half of the hot milk mixture over the flour.
If you use fresh yeast, dissolve it in a cup with 3 tablespoons of lukewarm milk and let it grow until the cup is full. If you use instant yeast, just mix it with the flour at the beginning.
Mix the yolks well with a pinch of salt then add them to the remaining mixture of milk and sugar, after it has cooled down, then add the yeast from the cup. When they are all well mixed, put it over the flour in the large bowl and start mixing by hand continuously the resulting dough for 30 minutes until you can see air bubbles in it.
Heat the oil (not too much, just warm) and pour it little by little over the dough mixing everything well. Add 3 egg whites beaten until foamy and continue mixing until the dough is homogenous.
Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let it stand until the volume of the dough increases 2 -3 times the original size. Caution! Keep the bowl in a warm place, away from cold draft.
Grind the walnuts and mix with 2 tablespoons of milk and raisins until you obtain a paste.
Divide the dough in two, then each half into 3 equal parts. On each of these parts spread the walnut paste then roll out the dough to cover the paste inside. Interweave those 3 rolls like a braid and put them in a large loaf pan greased with oil. Repeat with the other 3 parts of dough and put them in another loaf pan. Let them stand for 10 minutes then cover the dough with beaten egg and sprinkle castor sugar on top.
Preheat the oven to medium hot, put the pans inside and let them bake for 50 minutes.
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