Italian Easter Bread-Guti di Pasqua

Baking fluffy and gorgeous bread makes me very happy.

It's pretty wonderful when you bake something and your husband comes home from work and asks, "I guti di mia mamma! Did my mom send a care package with her Italian Easter bread?"

I felt my goofy smile go from small to gigantic. A huge ear to ear smile graced my happy face as I asked, "Are you kidding me?"

Fabrizio wasn't. He seriously thought his mamma sent us a care package from Italy with her special bread she makes. Teresa makes this wonderful bread not just at Easter…all year round it can be enjoyed in her sweet kitchen.

I bet in almost every house in Calabria during the Easter holiday you will find this braided bread. A wonderful sweet dough mixed with butter and eggs. The egg symbolizes fertility and also rebirth.

This is a ½ day baking project. You could do it in steps. Like color the eggs the day before or the morning of baking.  The kids LOVE to help me color the eggs and of course, braiding is a ton of fun!

My friend Juls at Juls Kitchen made a lovely Tuscan Schiacciata.
I came across a lovely blog written by Emiko Davies and she also made an Tuscan Easter Schiacciata. 
And my sweet friend Gwen posted a braided Italian Easter bread...Our breads are Easter twins-we even almost dyed the eggs the exact color:)
My lovely friend Reeni from Cinnamon Spice and Every Thing Nice made a gorgeous Italian Easter Bread wreath a few years back.
Proud Italian Cook has a savory Italian Easter Bread that looks really good.

Italian Easter Bread {Guti di Pasqua}

Ingredients:

1 cup milk
2 packets active dry yeast (two ¼ ounce envelopes)
4 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup sugar
4 ½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour (may need more as mixing)
1 Tbsp. lemon zest
1 teaspoon kosher salt
8 Tbsp. butter, room temperature (cut into 1 inch pieces)
4-6 dyed eggs

egg wash
1 egg
1 tablespoon water

Whisk in the eggs and vanilla and set aside.

In a large bowl whisk together the rest of the sugar, flour, lemon zest, and salt.

Pour the flour mixture in the bowl of a mixer. With dough hook attached and mixer on medium speed, slowly add the milk mixture (*the milk mixture has the milk, yeast, 1 tablespoon sugar, eggs, vanilla) to the flour mixture.

Be sure to mix well when all the butter is added (about 3-5 minutes). You may need to add more flour. Don't worry about the total amount of flour, keep adding until your dough is stiff and it is not sticky.

 Put a little flour onto a clean counter and scrape the dough out of mixer onto the counter. Knead the dough a little and shape the dough into a ball (you won't be kneading the dough too much…just a bit to shape it into an elastic ball of dough).


Oil a large mixing bowl and place the dough into the bowl.

Rub a little oil on top of the dough and cover it to rest in a draft-free area for a bout 1-1 ½ hours.

One hour later this is what I found! Wowsers! Nice dough. The dough will be doubled in size.

Punch down the dough.

See that amount of flour? I added too much to work the strips out. Next batch will have a little less flour.

I ended up fixing that middle strip and making sure the 3 strips were even so I could do my braid. If you are making one large braid, roll each piece into strips about 15 " long. If you are making two braids, the strips will be a bit smaller (sorry, I did not measure the strips).

Pinch the left side together to secure the three pieces and braid the 3 strips. Pinch the other side together on the right to secure it closed.

The fun part is tucking in the eggs wherever you'd like it in between the braids and cover the dough with a kitchen towel for about 40-45 minutes. When dough is about ready, preheat the oven to 350 F. Mine was ready to bake at 40 minutes.

Whisk together the egg and water for the egg wash and brush it on the dough avoiding the eggs.

Place the dough on a parchment lined baking pan and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Buon appetito e Buona Pasqua! Happy Easter.

What traditional food do you make for Easter?:)