The BEST Italian Easter Sweet Bread – Quick And Easy Recipe!

My absolute favorite Easter sweet bread in the whole world and the absolute easiest!

⬇️⬇️ Recipe ⬇️⬇️

PRINTABLE RECIPE: https://www.laurainthekitchen.com/recipes/the-best-italian-easter-bread/

EASTER SWEET BREAD RECIPE:
6 cups of All Purpose Flour
1 Cup of Granulated Sugar
1 Tbsp of Instant Yeast
Zest of 1 Orange
1 Tbsp of Vanilla Extract
1 Tbsp of Salt
1/2 cup of Milk
1/2 cup of Water
1/2 cup (1 stick) of Unsalted Butter
3 Eggs

Additional Ingredients:
Egg Wash, one egg beaten with a splash of milk or water
Sprinkles
6 Eggs
Powdered Sugar

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00:00 – Intro
01:26 – Make the Dough
05:42 – Let Dough Rise
06:11 – Roll Out The Dough
08:42 – Assemble the Bread
10:32 – Bake the Bread
11:14 – Dig In!

We’re making an Italian classic, the iconic sweet  Italian Easter bread. I have been eating this   recipe my entire life, it seems like, and I’ve  been making it for my friends and family for at   least 20 years, and if you are from the Jersey,  Philly, like New York area, like tri-state area,  

I should say, you can walk into a grocery store  an Italian deli a bakery without these all over   the place the the week of Easter they, are  so sensational, it’s delicious. It’s so much   better when you make it homemade, I show you my  recipe for, I’ve already shared this with you  

About 10 years ago, but it definitely needed to  be re-shared, revamped, but reshared, you know. The recipe isn’t really that different,  the only difference is that I made it just   a little bit sweeter, per the request of a few  family members, which, that’s fine, you know,  

And when you make it at when it’s nice and fresh  it is soft and tender, but it’s actually supposed   to be eaten days after you make it and it does  get like really dry and it’s so incredible dunked  

Into coffee it’s my favorite thing we make it  all week long this is my fourth one in the last   like 10 days, fourth batch, which each batch  makes two, this is my nonna’s little milk pan,  

This is a little pan that I have been make, well,  drinking milk out of since I was in diapers,   you can see that the handle is broken, it’s  very very special, and I like to bring it out   when I’m making recipes like this because  it just reminds me of the good old days.

We’re going to take this pan in in here, I’m  going to add milk and water and a stick of   butter and now this just needs to be warmed up  over the stove and the butter needs to melt.  

If you are anything like me, where you really,  to you, to me, traditions are really important,   and I keep traditions alive a lot through food,  you know the feeling you get when you take got  

Like an old pan or a skillet or something that  your mom your nonna, your diaa, all of your family   members that are really special to you have been  cooking in them for years and years and years,  

And it makes you feel like all cozy, that’s what  that little sauce pan does to me. She used to warm   up our milk, put coffee and sugar in it, yes  I said coffee and sugar, if you know you know,  

And we used to dunk old bread in it,  or sweet bread or something like that,   and it’s just the best, okay, in the bowl of  my standing mixer I’ve got all purpose flour,   to this I’m going to add granulated sugar. The  recipe is very easy, it’s pretty straightforward,  

But it’s phenomenal. Yeast, my favorite yeast is  linked in the description box below, it is the   only yeast that I use, it’s the best you don’t  need to proof it because it is instant yeast,   and it’s just wonderful. I keep it in  one of these jars in the fridge it’ll  

I do it every six months, I get a make  a new batch of yeast and add to this. I’m just going to zest a couple of clementines, if  you have an orange just use an orange, I actually  

Was just completely all out of oranges but I do  have a little girl who loves clementines all day   long so there’s always some around. If they at  the grocery store, give that just a quick mix,   and now we’ve got our warm milk and water,  our butter is just about fully melted,  

In I’m going to add a little vanilla extract,  ordinarily I use vanilla, but I’m really low,   which is just Italian powdered vanilla, so I’m  just going to use vanilla extract. I’ve got a   few eggs cracked and ready to go, I’m going to  pour this in here, everything goes in at the  

Same time it is so simple but it is the best  best best and it already smells like home to   me oh I forgot my whisk my attachment. Hold  on. Pop that on let that need for about 4 to  

5 minutes you want it to come together and I’ll  show you what it looks like when it’s there. That looks great it will be tacky but it  should not, if I can get this out come on   it will be really tacky, but it shouldn’t  be like a wet batter, you see like that,  

That looks great what I’m going to do is I’m  actually just going to leave it in here that’s,   that’s what I tend to do. I’m going to  wrap it really well and I’m just going   to leave that to rise until about doubled  in volume, and it is an enriched dough,  

Which means there’s eggs there’s butter  there’s milk which means it makes it heavy,   which means it takes a little longer to rise,  so I’m just going to be patient cover it let   it rise when it’s there I’ll show you what it  looks like and we’ll move on to the next step.

Oh this is why you come here, because this is  is called reality, okay, I forgot to add salt,   don’t you, don’t you dare forget to add salt, it’s  okay, it’s okay. Put this back on with the motor   running, you’re going to add salt slowly  to incorporate it, and just let it knead,  

For I’d say another minute or so. This is why  you come here, you know it makes you feel normal,   it makes you feel like I can tackle that because  if I forget salt, I’m just going to knead it a  

Second, just put it back in okay, now I’m going to  cover it properly and let it rise until doubled,   now that it’s salted, my dough is ready, look  at that gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. It’s thin,   you’ll see it’s a little sticky, so I’m just going  to flour my surface really good, flour my hands,  

I’m just going to use my little dough scraper,  you just cannot imagine how good this smells,   like it smells good and it’s not even baked yet,  right just make sure that lightly floured you   don’t want to put too much flour on it because  you really don’t want to lose that luscious like  

Bounce, this makes two loaves, okay, so I’m just  going to go ahead and cut this evenly in half I   have a baking sheet lined with parchment paper I  can make this with my eyes practically shut okay,  

You see why you don’t want to flour it too  much, but also not too little, because if   you flour it too heavily you won’t be able to  really roll it properly and you just kind of,  

I just roll and pull, you want about 24 inch is  like rope like so does not have to be perfect,   this is just home baking, home cooking, there’s  no art to this, I suppose the only art is that  

It’s coming out of your kitchen and you know  if it looks not perfect it just becomes this   is how your kids know that it’s your thing you  know what I mean anyway, I’m just going to do  

One of these like so. Pinch at the end, see  over here is a little bit looser than here you   just take it and you just go like that trying  to do this so that you can, see, beautiful.

Just like that, and as it rises it just looks  beautiful I’m going to do this other one really   quick now you can do these on two separate  baking sheets, but trust me if they bake  

Into each other a little bit that’s fine. You’re  going to put a few eggs around I do about three   and these are our homegrown eggs from our  chicks and look at these beautiful colors,   we did not dye them, that’s just different  chickens lay different colored eggs.

So you can do that, and the original recipe calls  for hard boiled eggs and then it hit me, why,   because they’re going to just kind of hard  boil, hard boil, if you will, in the oven,  

You know what I mean, and then we just take them  out and we eat them put them in the fridge and we   eat them. I’m going to loosely cover this, just  reusing the same plastic wrap because why not,  

Try not to waste anything, the eggs kind of  keep it from sticking too much to the actual   bread itself, otherwise if it’s too sticky like  if it’s on the bread directly it will peel off and  

Deflate the bread. I’m just going to let this rest  another 45 minutes or so 30-45 minutes, once they   are about halfway through I’m going to preheat  my oven to 350 so I’ll show you what they look  

Like when they are risen a little bit and then  we do one more thing to them before we bake them. Look how gorgeous, it’s risen really nicely  oven is preheated to 350 now this is the last  

Step which is just to brush it with a little  bit of egg wash which is just one egg beaten   with a little bit of milk or a little bit of water  whichever you’ve got and this is going to make it  

Really beautiful and golden brown and it becomes  like the perfect edible glue for your sprinkles. You can also use colored eggs, like  eggs just make sure they’re food safe   um instead of like like plain eggs just  be careful because they tend to like the  

Color tends to bleed into the bread as  it bakes, it’s really not my favorite,   and then I’m just going to take sprinkles I  use non perels, typically I like to use Italian   sprinkles but I didn’t go to Italy this year so  last year, so I didn’t grab any but you know,  

Non peals work really well and just like that  and these go into your oven at 350 for about   half hour until deeply golden brown, allow them  to cool completely before you slice into them,   so I’m just going to pop them in and I’ll show  you what they look like when they’re done.

These were in the oven 30 minutes and look at how  gorgeous, it is simply stunning it’s really soft   when they’re nice and fresh, but like I said  they will dry out and they’ll become really   dense and dry and they’re meant to be that way  because you’re supposed to dunk these in coffee  

And it is so good depending on where you go  a lot of places will do like I do where you   dust them with powdered sugar and you cut  them and you go some places do with glaze   I don’t care for the glaze to be honest  with you because in my humble of opinion,  

It’s just like sickly sweet and  it takes away from the aromatic   and look at that you can see the orange  running through it you guys it is so good. Mmm. Tastes like my childhood, makes me happy, my  daughter loves it, it is a long-standing tradition  

In our family to make Easter bread so that we can  enjoy all week long the week of Easter, and then I   make sure to make a fresh one that we can have for  Easter Sunday to dunk into coffee after church,  

It’s like such a good tradition that we started  with our family and I want you to do the same   because it’s delicious, it’s so good it is the  best and you kind of get like I said two different  

Textures depending on when you eat it you got  to eat one fresh and then the other one you save   it for the next day and the day after that go to  Laurainthekitchen.com for the written recipe hope  

You enjoyed spending time with me, Happy Easter  to you and yours, I hope you make it a great one! Bye-bye!