Italian Easter Bread

Author: Veruska Anconitano, Award-Winning Food Travel Journalist, Sommelier & Outdoor LoverAuthor information
Veruska
About the author
Veruska Anconitano
Veruska is a a food travel journalist with awards to her credit, such as World Best Food Travel Journalist. She holds a certification as a sommelier and she is also an ardent lover of the outdoors. Aside from this, Veruska is a Multilingual SEO and Localization Consultant and co-owns multiple websites that cater to a global audience.
Website Linkedin Twitter

Italians love bread, don’t we? That’s why I wanna introduce you to this Italian Easter Bread, ideal for Easter but in reality for the whole spring. There are many ways of calling this Italian Easter Bread in Italy, all dependant by the region where they’re made: they can be called cuddure, cudduraci, cuzzupe and so on, but the thinh all of them have in common is the presence of an egg in the middle (like in the casatiello) and the fluffiness.

It is leavened and flavored sweet dough with liqueur, very eggy and very tasty; it is used to eat it on Easter time but honestly, it is very good and if it were not for the eggs placed in the middle (which many people omit) you could eat it practically all year round without committing a sin. You can give this Italian Easter Bread the shape you want, even lengthened!

The recipe calls for anise liqueur but you can use Cointreau or Amaretto and even the eggs may already be hard-boiled even if they will tend to become too hard; I advise you to take the bread out of the oven before the bait is completely dry (use a toothpick to see if it’s dry or moist) because the pastry dries and if it is overcooked it becomes hard. This Easter bread is well preserved for over a week if not in contact with the air.

The best way is to put it in food paper or in a plastic bag so that, as the days pass, they become softer.

The following is the traditional recipe to make this Italian Easter bread at home; you can decide to make 20 small buns or a big one, it’s entirely up to you!

Ingredients for 20

  • 1 kg of all purpose flour
  • 5 eggs
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 300 grams of sugar
  • 200 grams of butter
  • 1 glass of anise liqueur
  • 2 tsp dry yeast
  • 2 lemons
  • 2  egg whites
  • sprinkles

Method

  1. Mix the flour with the sugar and the yeast in a bowl and then drill a hole in the center and pour the eggs, the pinch of salt, the peel of the grated lemons and the liqueur. Beat the liquid mixture with the fork and mix it in the dry ingredients then add the soft butter cut into small pieces.
  2. Work the dough with your hands until you get a fairly soft and slimy dough, easy to work, and spread it to a height of about 1.5 cm then get some typical shapes. Insert a raw egg into each shape.
  3. Spread on the surface of each dough the beaten egg white biscuit and decorate with sprinkles.
  4. Bake at 180°C/356°F for about 20 minutes, allow to cool and eat.

Preparation time: 40 minutes

If you love this...
Social

Latest articles

Do you want to receive a notification when we publish a new article?