Italian Easter Bread

This recipe is courtesy of Grains of Earth!

I put myself in charge of Easter dinner this year because I had a ton of new recipes I wanted to try out! While everything turned out delicious, this Ukranian Easter bread was my pride and joy. It turned out so perfect. Yes, that is a whole duck egg in the middle. The great thing about this bread is you can make it for anything - just leave the egg out of the middle. It won't compromise the bread shape and you can save it for Easter, to make it special.

Ingredients

2 1/4 tsp yeast

1 1/2 cups milk

pinch of salt

1/3 cup salted butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

3 1/2 cups (approx.) flour

1 egg, beaten with 1 tsp water

6 eggs, dyed or not (your choice)

pearl sugar

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, warm the milk and butter together, just until the butter is melted.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine yeast, salt, eggs and sugar. Add the warm (too hot and it will kill the yeast) milk mixture.
3. Add one cup of flour, mixing in between, until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky. You may end up using more than 3 1/2 cups of flour; that's fine.
4. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth.
5. Placed in a greased, covered bowl, and let rise for 1 hour.
6. Punch dough down and divide into 12 pieces. Roll the pieces out into 1-inch thick ropes about 14 inches long. Taking two pieces, pinch ends together and braid, then form into a loop and pinch together.
7. Lining a baking sheet with greased aluminum foil, place braided circles on it.
8. Once you've braided all of your loops, cover the sheet and let rise for 1 hour.
9. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
10. When the circles are done rising, brush with the egg wash. Place a whole, raw egg in the middle of each circle. The egg will bake through in the oven. Sprinkle the circles with pearl sugar as generously as you like.
11. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool on a rack.
12. NOTE: because of the eggs in the middle, this bread does need to be stored in a refrigerator. If you don't put the eggs in the middle, store it like any other bread!