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!
mini loaves and we braided them. We made about 8 of these lovely little
sweet loaves. Then I turned on the oven to preheat while they were still rising.
towels on them to rise. The towels stuck to the tops of our pretty
braids. The flavor was incredible, but I ruined the aesthetic appeal of
our hard baking work in a quick error.
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.
March 31, 2013: You can see my Easter Wreath here made with the same recipe. 🙂
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?:)
I've always wanted to make an Easter Bread witrh colorful eggs baked in - and yours is exactly how I dream it would come out. I'll have to wait for Passover to end, and evereything else to get better, to give it a shot, maybe a 4th of July Bread with red, white and blue eggs? lol Love your hubby thinking it was his Mom's..the ultimate compliment!
Oh, baby, this is beautiful! Perfect bread - the texture is perfect and oh I'd be nibbling slices of it all day long. And how exciting that F thought is was his mama's! LOL love it! Now I'm wondering if I should try it, too...without the pretty eggs. Hope you had a delicious, Italian, chocolate-filled Easter!! xox
Your blog is an absolute joy to read! Thank you for sharing a bit of your life with us!
Hi Lora, just stopping by to say how delightful your blog is. Thanks so much for sharing. I have recently found your blog and am now following you, and will visit often. Please stop by my blog and perhaps you would like to follow me also. Have a wonderful day. Hugs, Chris
http://chelencarter-retiredandlovingit.blogspot.ca/
It a very nice Easter bread. I love the colorful accent the eggs add to it. Thank you for sharing this tradition.
Hugs
Sounds like you had a good time making this beautiful bread studded with the eggs. Hope that you had a wonderful Easter!
Loved your post! My Italian family makes the Easter bread called Cuzzupe. We make it every Easter, even my nieces and nephew get in the act. The only difference is we do not use yeast and we put in anise seeds, which gives it the flavor. Our recipe is more like a cake dough than a light bread. But your recipe sounds really good, will have to try it. Thanks, Hope you had a wonderful Easter.
Loved the story that goes along with this bread making 🙂 I am sure she forgave you though...how we learn 🙂
Beautiful and festive bread here! Hope you had a lovely Easter!
That is most certainly bread fit for Easter. Oh and I bet Teresa has indeed forgiven you. GREG
Ahhhhhhhhh shades of my family life! LOVE THIS - thank you so much for posting!
This is so cool. It looks like it's so worth all the work 🙂
I'm confused about one other instruction . . . you said to preheat the oven to 350 but then you comment that at minute 17 you lowered the temperature to 350. But, I don't see where you increase the temperature to something above 350.
Last night I adjusted my directions as I baked a new batch only on 350 and was happy with the results. The first batch I started at 375 and then lowered it 1/2 way through. 😉
I have a (probably stupid) question... Do you hard boil the eggs first, or just dye them and they bake in the oven? I'm a 100% Irish girl trying to impress her 100% Italian Mother-in-Law... (14 years and still trying...lol). Thanks!!
not at all! I do hard boil my eggs first and then add them to the bread cooked and colored:)I know some add them colored and uncooked. I think you can do it for your MIL with this recipe;)
I make this bread recipe many Easter mornings. I decided to try your recipe this year. I wanted to let you know that their is a typo in it (or I just missed the step), but I can't find where you instruct for the eggs/vanilla to be added to the bread dough.
Can't wait to see how this turns out.
Hi-It is there. The eggs/vanilla get added to the yeast mixture:) Happy baking!
Lora, this bread is beautiful! What a wonderful Easter tradition! It is so unique and perfect with the eggs on top! Hope you are having a wonderful Holiday!
Sono tanto felice di aver trovato questa recetta. Sono Americano ma sono anni che non mi trovo piu' in Italia. Al vedere quest'articolo m'ha fatto sorridere tantissimo. Mi manca molto la cucina italiana. Domani prepararemo questo pane per celebrare la pascua. Grazie per averla messo disponible su questo sito. Buona Pascua.
grazie e Buona Pasqua;)
Beautiful bread, Lora! I made it a few years back and my girls were crazy about it! My neighbors thought I was magical, as they had never seen anything that beautiful:) I don't know why I don't make it more often - you are right, why eat it only for Easter?
I was laughing about your ruining the appearance of the loaves, but it has happened to me a few times: I like to place my dough to rise in a barely warm oven if it is too cold in the kitchen, and sometimes I forget and turn the oven on to preheat:) Yeah, I know:)
I am doing the eggs, the bread, and the lamb next Sunday for Serbian Orthodox Easter, so I have a few days to relax:)
Have a great holiday weekend!
Stunning bread. This is torture on the eve on Passover. Love your baking with your MIL and this is such a heartwarming Easter tradition. Happy Easter!
I love this story. What a great tradition for Easter.
What beautiful bread and how cute with the eggs on it...I love that when you post you make such lovely pictures and show each step...as always a trip to your site leaves me hungry and jealous at how well written your blog is...I need some leasons 🙂
Oh I just adore family food traditions! The Easter bread is stunning! A perfect holiday post, delightful.