Paska (Easter Bread)

Easter is a very special holiday for me personally. It means so much for me and every year, I am super excited for Easter to come. As a believer, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose from the death on the third day. Because of the cross, we all can have eternal life. That is what Easter means to me and my family.

During my childhood years in Ukraine, we had a tradition to bake Paskas (easter bread) every Easter. Let me share a secret with you, my altimate weakness is sweet breads: pierogies, paskas, wedding bread (korovai), scones (especially blueberry ones), muffins etc. I can eat a whole large Paska in one seating with couple of friends. Whoever knows me good enough, would be able to confirm. There is a specific type of Paskas that I adore. Some of the paskas I’ve tried, tasted like plain bread, while other kinds are not sweet enough or does not have that rich flavor of Easter Bread. I fell in love with this specific Paska the day I tried it 12 years ago, at my sisters house, when we just moved to america, I never had tried better Easter Bread than this one.

This is my 4th year that I am making Paska on my own. My first Paska, 4 years ago, rose well and after baking, one side fell down a little, but the flavor was really good. I did not stop trying and each year I got better and better. As for this year, I can say that my Easter bread turned out perfectly !

Super yummy and soft, with big pores and rich “Real-Paska” flavor my Paska is our families favorite. My kids love it and when its Easter season, they eat Paska in the morning and afternoon, snack or before bed with milk or hot tea. When I was baking Paska for the blog few days ago, my husband asked me not to cut him paska to work, because the day before I gave him a lot and told to share with his workers but he ate it all by himself. So he said he does not want that to happen again:) This is how much we love Paskas)))

Now, I want say how it is important to follow  the recipe. Because each recipe has different ingredient brands, it is very important for Paskas to do everything step by step in the order shown below.  If you will follow the recipe and will follow the instructions closely, you will get a great result, with no stress, believe me.

The most important ingredient in this Bread is FLOUR. MAKE SURE you buy Canadian flour or if you cannot find the Canadian flour, you can use all purpose flour.  Each flour is very different and if you will use a different type of flour, the dough might turn out difficult.

I used Large panettone paper molds (amazon has them for the best price i found so far). You will get 2 large Paskas from this recipe or you can order medium, that way you will get 3 good sized breads as well. In my house they do not rest long, so I like it better to have 2 big ones. If you cant order the paper molds for some reason, its not a problem. You can use any kind baking pans, spread with margarine and sprinkled with flour.

About 40 minutes is the time needed to work with Paska dough, the rest of the time the dough will be rising. It is worth every minute, believe me. For this upcoming Easter, I am planing to bake about 10 Paskas, because I usually share it with family and friends. But maybe they will surprise me this year and bake it for me, who knows.

🚨 🚨🚨VERY IMPORTANT NOTE::: REMEMBER!!! PATIENCE is the key to the success in this recipe. Don’t rush, do everything step by step, especially with the rising time, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!🚨🚨🚨

I really hope that you will give this Paska (Easter Bread) a try.

 

Ingredients:

2 cups (1/2 liter) milk

4 Tbsp butter

4 Tbsp margarine

pinch of salt

12 organic egg yolks

11/2 cup sugar

3 Tbsp active dry yeast + 1 tbsp sugar + 1 tbsp canadian flour + 1/4 cup water

2 Tbsp sour cream

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

4 Tbsp warm honey

7 cups Canadian flour (sifted)

3 Tbsp Canola oil

1 cup raisins (optional)

2 large paper molds, or 3 medium

Powdered sugar for dusting

Dry roses for decoration (optional)

1. Place raisins in a medium bowl and cover them with boiled water, let them sit while preparing the dough.

  

2. Combine active dry yeast + flour + sugar and pour water over it, mixing with a spoon. You should get kind of thick consistency without any chunks of dry yeast. Let it rise for 20 min.

3. In a medium pan boil milk + butter + margarine + pinch of salt. Pour the hot milk mixture in a large bowl, where you will be mixing the dough. Notice, the dough will rise so make sure that your bowl is big enough.

     

Step by step we are getting closer to the final.

4.With an electric mixer, mix the egg yolks and sugar for 20 minutes.

While the egg yolks were beating, milk has cooled to a warm temperature, which is great. Pour egg yolk mixture over the milk and on a low speed mix it with a hand mixer until combined (30 seconds).

Add sour cream + vanilla extract and keep mixing it with a hand mixer.

Add the yeast mixture and mix well

Add 1 cups flour and mix! MAKE SURE THE FLOUR IS SIFTED!

Add honey = mix

Add gradually 5 cups of flour = mix

Add drained raisins

Turn off the mixer and mix the last cup of flour using your hands. Pour a tablespoon of oil over your hand and mix the dough well. It will be kind of sticky, which is the way you need it to be. Use a bit more oil to form the dough in a smooth shape. Pour the left over oil over your hand and blend in the oil over top of the dough. Dough should be soft.

MAKE SURE to have the dough in the warm place ( no open windows around ). Cover with a clean towel and let it rise for 4 hours. PLEASE, make sure you don’t touch the dough earlier then 4 hours. TIME is the main key to the success in this recipe, REMEMBER This!!!!!!!!!!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Divide dough evenly into 2 large paper molds or 3 medium. What ever pan or paper mold size you are using, you want to have almost half of the form filled with the dough. Try not to stomp it down much. Place the dough on the top of the range and let the dough rise for additional 1-1/2 hours until the molds are almost full.

 

Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes in the middle of the oven until the top is golden brown. Let it cool and then tear off the wrapper.

Sprinkle with good amount of powdered sugar and sprinkle few petals of dried roses on the top.