Weekend cooking: Easter bread

This is the Easter breakfast of my childhood: hot cocoa, sweet Easter bread, dyed eggs, and a few pieces of cheese.

Back then, to prepare the breakfast we would drop by the local bakery and buy a magnificent huge loaf of Easter bread. Today, there is no bakery in sight! So this year, I downloaded several recipes from Internet, and braced myself to bake my own Easter bread version. Of course, I introduced a few quirks in the recipe.

Easter bread
You need:
a pinch of salt, 1 lemon, (for its zest)
2 Tbsp rum (any)
2 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup of raisins (optional)
1 packet of dry yeast
1 cup of milk (room temperature)
3/4 cup of sugar
4 eggs (save one yolk to brush on top of the bread)
1/2 cup olive oil
4 1/2 cups of flour (I use 1:1 white to whole wheat flour)
 
For the glaze:
1 yolk
1 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp olive oil
 
Sprinkle:
2 Tbsp crystal sugar

Instructions:
Dissolve the yeast in the milk with a teaspoon of sugar. Leave for a few minutes to re-hydrate the yeast. In a large bowl, mix the flour and salt. Separately, mix the eggs with the sugar until well combined (I use a fork to vigorously beat the eggs). Add the yeast, oil, rum, vanilla, lemon zest, and raisins.

Make a well in the flour and pour the egg/sugar in. Slowly start incorporating the flour with the liquid (by hand). The dough will be soft. Make sure that the bowl has flour on the bottom, under the dough. Cover with saran wrap and a kitchen towel. Leave to rise for four hours (I leave the dough on top of the fridge, where it is warmer). Mix the three ingredients for the glazing, and store in the fridge until use.

Separate the dough into three parts, shape into long strips and braid them on top of a cookie sheet that has been oil-sprayed and floured. If the dough braid is long enough, make a circle out of it. You could also separate the dough into five to six balls, and then combine them into a dome-like structure. The shape of the bread depends upon your preferences. Cover the shaped bread again, and let it rise for at least another 30 minutes. Before baking, brush the bread with the glaze and sprinkle with crystal sugar. Bake at 350F for 30-40 minutes.

Verdict: The bread was delightful, fragrant, and not too sweet. If you want it to rise more, use only white flour. 

What else was for Easter?  I made the stuffed chicken again. 

On Easter morning, we had an early breakfast with an introduction played by our vintage Easter bunny (see below), and egg "fights", in which we established whose egg was the strongest.

Our vintage Easter bunny-egg.