My grandmother on my mother’s side is a full blooded Italian Catholic, so Easter was always a big deal. I remember having this for Easter as a kid – mostly I remember it because I wondered “How did Grandma get the eggs in the bread like that?” This year I wasn’t able to spend Easter with her but I was able to send her half of my first ever loaf of Easter bread. I wish this was my grandma’s recipe, but I found a pretty good one – from another blogger who has an Italian mother-in-law. I made this with my brother who is pretty good at making bread, so we fiddled just a little with the directions.
Ingredients:
1 cup milk
2 packets active dry yeast (two 1/4 ounce envelopes)
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
4 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for working the dough
1 Tbsp. lemon zest
1 tsp salt
1 stick butter, room temperature (cut into 1 inch pieces)
4-6 dyed eggs
Egg Wash:
1 egg
1 Tbsp. water
Directions:
Start by dying your eggs so they’ll have time to dry before you bake the bread.
Warm milk on the stove to 110F, mix in 1 Tbsp. of sugar and the yeast – whisk together and let sit for about 5 minutes to allow yeast to activate. You should get a nice filmy bubbly-ness on top.
While the yeast is getting bubbly go ahead and mix all the dry ingredients together – the rest of the sugar, the flour, salt and lemon zest – and set it aside.
Next, whisk 4 non-dyed eggs and the vanilla into the yeast mixture.
Pour the yeast and egg mixture into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the dry ingredients in a little at a time. Now mix in the butter one cube at a time. You may need to add more flour to get your dough to come together – it should pull away from the sides of the bowl when it’s ready.
Dump your dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times, just enough to get a smooth texture and form a ball. Place dough ball in an oiled bowl, cover with a cloth and leave to rise for 1-1.5 hours. When it’s ready it should be doubled in size.
Punch the dough down and turn it out onto a very lightly floured surface. Divide into 3 equal size pieces and roll into ~15 inch long snakes. Lay the snakes out parallel to each other and pinch together at one end, then braid them together and pinch the other ends. Now tuck your dyed (raw) eggs into the braid wherever you find space. Cover with a cloth and leave to rise for another 45 minutes while you pre-heat the oven to 350F.
Whisk together the egg and water for the egg wash and brush it on the braid avoiding the dyed eggs as best you can. Finally, pop it in the oven for about 25 minutes, at this point your braid should be golden brown.
I wasn’t sure how to tell if bread was done (and my brother had gone to bed at this point) so I put mine in for an additional 5 minutes. It didn’t hurt my Easter bread, but it was definitely unnecessary – it wound up just a little too dark on the bottom, you can sort of see it in the last photo.
Kitchen Alchemist 