Italian Easter Bread

The count down to Easter brunch continues this week with a visually stunning treat: Italian Easter bread. This dish does take a good amount of time to prepare but it is well worth it. In the past, I made it as a take-home treat for our Easter brunch guest. However, you can certainly serve these beautiful bread baskets as part of your main meal. The bread itself is mildly sweet and very fluffy, only to be topped off with an Easter classic: the egg.

You can choose to do as I did and make the Italian Easter bread using stark white eggs and pearl sprinkles to create a gorgeous contrast of shining white against a golden brown bread. Or you can make it a feast for the eyes using dyed eggs and rainbow sprinkles to celebrate the great spectrum of color that the Spring season has to offer. Either way, this recipe is sure to impress your family and friends.

Italian Easter Bread

Ingredients:

1 package rapid rise yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)

1 1/4 cups milk

pinch of salt

1/3 cup butter

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup sugar

3 1/2 cups flour (approximate)

1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon of water--to use as egg wash

6 eggs (dyed if you want a little color pzazz)

sprinkles

**The eggs do not need to be hard boiled. They cook when the bread bakes. Simply dye the eggs raw without hard-boiling them.

In a small sauce pan, warm the milk and butter together, just until the butter melts. In a large mixing bowl, combine yeast, salt, 2 eggs, and sugar. Add the warm (not hot--it will kill the yeast) milk and butter. Add about half the flour and beat until smooth with dough hook. Slowly add the remaining flour to form a stiff dough. Don't worry about how much flour it ends up being, just keep adding until the dough is not sticky anymore. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size--about an hour.

Punch dough down, divide into 12 pieces. Roll each piece to form a 1 inch thick rope about 14 inches long and, taking two pieces, twist to form a "braid", pinching the ends and loop into a circle. When you are done, you will have 6 braided dough rings.

Place the dough "rings" on two baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Cover and let rise until doubled in size--about an hour. Brush each bread ring with beaten egg wash. Add on sprinkles. In the middle of each bread ring, gently place an Easter egg.

Bake at 350 degrees F until golden--about 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

When done, you can eat the bread and then consume the egg just as you would with a hard-boiled egg. You can make these ahead of time but be sure to refrigerate them until ready to consume.