Traditional Easter Braided Sweet Bread
As Easter is approaching I’m sharing with you some of my favourite recipes for this occasion. This sweet bread (or challah, kalács, brioche) is always a hit with everyone I know, consumed either with butter, marmalade, jam, by itself, or even with cooked ham and horseradish (YES!) – everybody has their loved variation. This bread is traditionally on every table in Hungary during the Easter festivities – plain, sprinkled with sesame or poppy seeds, or decorated with bows, coloured eggs. This time I made a plain version, but you may add raisins to the dough, and sprinkle the bread with seeds or kosher salt and decorate to your liking.
Ingredients:
500g flour
7g instant dried yeast
50g sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
pinch of salt
250ml whipping cream
2 eggs + 1 white
raisins
1 egg yolk and 1 tbsp of milk for brushing
Preparation:
1. Mix flour and yeast and pour everything in the bowl of a stand mixer. Knead for about 5-7 minutes. My mixer gave up after around 2 minutes, so I continued kneading with my hands. If you are using raising, add 2 minutes before finishing kneading.
2. Form a ball and let the dough rise for 1 hour.
3. Now the fun part, do the braid! I found nice step-by-step instructions for this here:
http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2011/09/sweet-technique-braiding-challah.html
I made a braid with 4 strings now.
4. Transfer to a baking pan (lined with baking sheet) and let it rise for about 30 mins more.
5. Brush the braid with the mixture of the egg yolk and 1 tbsp milk.
6. Place the bread in pre-heated oven and bake for about 35-40 mins at 190°C, or until golden brown.
Serve with whatever you like! 
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[...] traditional sweet braided bread that you will find at almost any Hungarian table during the [...]
I’ve always wanted to make this. Maybe I’ll change up my Easter cinnamon rolls that I usually make and try this for a change. You make it sound so easy.
That is because it really is : )) Even without a mixer, I promise
I want to try EVERYTHING here!!!!!!! These look beautiful!!!
These look BEAUTIFUL! I want to try everything here!
Thank you!!
Oh my, this sounds soooo good!
Not a crumble left out of half kg…
Looks so delicious!
Thank you
Wow! Looks pretty! Yours didn’t “rise apart” as hard as mine in the oven…
My mom also makes little pouches from the same dough, filled with a cottage cheese and raisin stuffing… Those are quite delectable, too!
Thanks for liking the herb version!
Mmh the cottage cheese filling version sounds great too! Thanks for passing by
Lovely! I love how so many different cultures have a version of this Easter bread!
There must be a common root somewhere