Sixteen years ago I was in college and my little brother was in elementary school preparing for his First Holy Communion. My parents had to be out of town for some reason the weekend of his First Communion retreat, so I came home and went with him to this day-long sacramental preparation. During the day they showed a video called “Grandma’s Bread” that tells the story of a little boy named Mario whose grandmother passes away unexpectedly a couple days after they make Easter Bread together (13 years later, I laughed out loud as I watched the same video in a different church hall as my daughter prepared for her First Communion). At the end of the retreat that day, they sent everyone home with a recipe for Easter Bread. When I made Easter bread and brought it with me to Easter dinner at my grandparent’s house that year my Nanna smiled and told me that her grandmother used to make Easter bread and she hadn’t had it in years. That sealed the deal, a tradition was born and for the past 16 years, I have made Easter bread to go along with our family Easter meal every year. Over the years I have taken the recipe they shared at my brother’s First Communion retreat and I’ve made it my own and I am sharing it with you below. Enjoy! Ingredients: Yeast mixture: ¼ cup warm water 1 tsp sugar 2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast Dough: ½ cup sugar 1 cup scalded milk ⅓ cup butter (soft or melted) 2 beaten eggs Pinch of salt 4 cups flour** Egg Wash: 1 egg 1 tbsp water sprinkles (I typically use colored sugar sprinkles)
*Traditional Easter bread typically includes colored hard boiled eggs folded into the braids and the bread is often braided in a ring. While many recipes tell you that you don’t need to hard boil the eggs first, I have found that they sometimes are more soft boiled after baking them in the bread when raw and suggest soft boiling them before you color them if your family prefers hard boiled eggs to soft boiled eggs. **I have made this recipe using gluten free flour. The consistency of the dough when gluten free flour is used makes the dough more breakable and harder to braid. It is doable, just go slow and pinch it back together if a “dough snake” breaks. The loaf also does not rise quite as much with gluten free flour in my experience.
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My Homemaker hat
I imagined that I would be like June Cleaver, only work outside the house and maybe get caught vacuuming in heels and pearls a little less often. Turns out I'm a little more like a mix of June Cleaver and Frankie Heck...most days it feels like I've got more Frankie going on than June. I'm definitely a work in progress. :) Archives
November 2020
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