Recipe: Italian Easter bread to enjoy this Easter!

The daffodils are blooming again, so spring is approaching. This also means that Easter is getting closer. And of course you don't miss an opportunity like this to put something extra tasty on the table. That's why we share the recipe for a delicious Italian Easter bread!

You would actually want to bring Italy into your home all year round, but some occasions are even more suitable for this than usual. One of them is of course Christmas, but Easter is also a festive time that calls for a table full of delicious food and fun.

Italian Easter bread

An Italian Easter bread looks a bit like its Christmas counterpart, the well-known one Panettone. In Italy they call the traditional bread eaten during Easter 'Colomba di Pasqua'. Literally translated it means 'Easter pigeon', after the rough shape of the traditional bread. By the way, not all Easter bread is baked in this form.

Ingredients for the Easter bread

Making bread requires quite a bit of arm strength or a good food processor with a dough hook. But once you taste this Easter treat, you'll know it was worth it.

For Italian Easter bread you need the following ingredients:

• 500 grams of flour (and some extra for your worktop)
• 1 pinch of salt
• 100 grams of butter
• 1 sachet of yeast
• 150 ml of warm water
• 2 tablespoons white caster sugar
• 150 ml milk (at room temperature)
• 200 grams of organic raisins
• 1 lemon peel (grated)
• 1 orange peel (grated)
• some icing sugar for sprinkling

Preparation of the Easter bread

1. Let the oven preheat to 200 degrees.
2. Place the raisins in some warm water and let them soak for 10 minutes. Then let them dry on a tea towel. When the raisins are dried, mix them with a little flour so that they do not stick together.
3. Take a mixing bowl and first add a pinch of salt and then the flour.
4. Mix the water, milk, yeast and sugar together and let it sit for 5 minutes to let the yeast work.
5. Add the yeast mixture to the flour and turn on the mixer with dough hooks or knead by hand. Knead for about 3 minutes until combined. Then add 50 g soft butter piece by piece and knead for another 4 minutes.
6. Remove the dough from the bowl and knead it by hand for a few more minutes.
7. Form the dough into a ball and place it back in the bowl. Cover it with a damp tea towel and let it rise for about 15 minutes.
8. Add the raisins, lemon zest and orange zest to the dough and run it again in the food processor until the filling is well mixed.
9. Carefully remove the dough from the machine and divide it into 3 equal parts. Carefully roll 3 strips of about 35 cm. Braid these strips together and make a wreath by gluing the ends and beginnings together. Line a baking tray with baking paper and place the wreath on it. You can carefully place a stainless steel ring in the middle, so that there is a hole during baking. Now let the bread rise for 35 minutes.
10. Place the risen bread in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. When the bread has just come out of the oven, you can brush it with the last 50 grams of butter and then sprinkle with icing sugar.

Tasty variations

In this Easter recipe we make the bread in the shape of a wreath, but you can also make it into a round loaf or in the shape of the original Italian colomba. Then check extra carefully whether the Easter bread is also properly cooked in the middle by tapping the bottom of the bread. Does it sound hollow? Then the bread is good.

And do you really like nuts or do you want to incorporate some extra proteins into the bread? In that case, you can replace some of the raisins with chopped nuts. Then the bread will also have an even richer taste. There are of course more easter recipes with variants for Easter bread. Buon appetito!