Easter Bread With Dried Fruit Recipe (2024)

I have made this bread several times with success. However, I find that soaking the fruit and discarding the liquid removes color and flavor. Instead I soak the fruit in a half-cup of white dessert wine. The wine will all be absorbed after 24 hours or so. The result will be even better.

This is very close to my German grandmother's stollen recipe, she would always make 4-5 loaves for gifting to the family every Christmas and Easter. She finished hers with a glaze/frosting made of confectioners sugar and lemon juice, which as children we believed was most worthwhile part! The loaves keep for weeks, but get a bit dry - the solution of course is to lightly toast a slice and gild with more butter. That's why this isn't a year-round thing ;-p

At what point are the HB Easter eggs put in? Or, are you supposed to make ‘room’ for them before cooling or when and how?

This is wonderful! Seeing the comments about slow rise, I heated my oven to about 80 degrees and did the rises in it (figuring that a bakery is often much warmer than my home). Worked like a charm.

For those with questions regarding the decorative hard-boiled eggs: the colored and boiled eggs are firmly placed in the dough prior to baking.

Made this last night. Turned out delicious, but lacking esthetically. The dough didn't rise as much as it should've, per recipe indications, so instead of "engulfing" the dried fruit and showing a neat surface, the berries, sultanas, etc were often on the surface and it looks a bit mishappen. Not sure what failed: about 1/4 of the flour used had to be bread flour, and I used instant yeast (but was careful to convert the amount properly.) Everything else by the book.

This turned out fantastically for me, but not without some confusion. The first knead was incredibly sticky, so I added a little bit of flour at a time, but after kneading and flouring for several minutes, it was still pretty sticky. The dough also didn't rise as much as the recipe indicated. The first rise took 1.5 hours for me, and still it wasn't doubled. Ditto with the second rise not doubling after 30. Trust your instincts on this one! Dough turns out supple and rich. Lovely.

This was wonderful and turned out great. But the time it took to raise the sponge and bread was three times the listed recipe time. Maybe I bought a poor yeast.

I make something very similar and never boil my eggs. I dye them and add them to bread before rise and then bake. They cook in oven.

Please explain the eggs. Are they decoration put on after baking?

I used bread flour and left out almost 1 cup when making the final dough. Used the proof setting on my oven which cut down the rising time, about 100degrees which is significantly warmer than my New England kitchen around Easter. The result was a dense flavorful mix between cake and bread, toasted beautifully when stale.

Proofing yeast with milk is tricky. If you first scald the milk, then cool it to room temperature your yeast and/or sponge will rise. I have used powdered milk when making lots of loaves then there is no guess work.

This recipe is THE BEST Easter Bread recipe I've tried - even better than mom's! Everyone loved it. I didn't hard boil the eggs first - why would you need to do this? I put in colored raw eggs and they cooked along with the bread. Came out great. We had bread and hard boiled eggs before our Sunday church service.THANKS!!

This recipe is perfect! I prepped the loaves the day before and put the braided loaves in the refrigerator before they rose a second time. Easter morning I set them out to warm and rise and then baked it before lunch. The loaves were warm and aromatic for our Easter lunch. Everyone commented on the delicious bread.

Well.... nice taste... but like others here, I found my dough didn't rise as much as I would have wanted. I am a competent bread baker and my yeast was brand new. The bread is a bit dry and now here I am stuck with two loaves of it! I will try a different recipe next time.... PS: I didn't bother with the Easter eggs, so can't comment on those.

The sponge is similar to prep Sourdough. If you have a healthy sourdough starter it might work better than this sponge, but, that’s just my opinion/method, it worked fairly well, rose spectacularly and baked off decent. I used 2 raw eggs to act as placeholders for the HB and dyed eggs I’ll nestle into at service.

For those with questions regarding the decorative hard-boiled eggs: the colored and boiled eggs are firmly placed in the dough prior to baking.

It took a long time to rise. I forget how many hours, made longer because I put the dough in the refrigerator overnight before each of the two rises. The bread however came out delicious. I tucked two raw eggs in the dough right before putting in the oven. They went well with the bread but I would remove them and put in frig if you don’t eat them right away. I also used raisins instead of currants. If I do this next year I will start this 2 days ahead to make it easier.

I make something very similar and never boil my eggs. I dye them and add them to bread before rise and then bake. They cook in oven.

This is wonderful! Seeing the comments about slow rise, I heated my oven to about 80 degrees and did the rises in it (figuring that a bakery is often much warmer than my home). Worked like a charm.

for Amy: hard boil eggs +/- with dye in the water, (eg. deep red dye for Greek Easter bread) for 20 minutes. cool, then rub gently with olive oiled paper towel and set eggs aside. after final rise, nestle eggs in bread between braids or dough decorations (leaves, heads of wheat, grape cluster w tendrils) or almond slivers. brush all with a honey glaze (or egg wash) and bake. eggs not necessarily meant to be eaten.

Proofing yeast with milk is tricky. If you first scald the milk, then cool it to room temperature your yeast and/or sponge will rise. I have used powdered milk when making lots of loaves then there is no guess work.

I used bread flour and left out almost 1 cup when making the final dough. Used the proof setting on my oven which cut down the rising time, about 100degrees which is significantly warmer than my New England kitchen around Easter. The result was a dense flavorful mix between cake and bread, toasted beautifully when stale.

I used bread flour and left out almost 1 cup for the dough. Plus used the poof setting on the oven to rise. Cut off the rising time and had a dense cake like loaf that toasted well once stale.

Growing up, my family (from a small farming town between Rome & Naples) would make one that was close to a brioche, very buttery and flaky, modestly sweet, but none of the spices and fruits in this recipe. I successfully used this as a base, and just left out all that. Seems it would be closer to a panettone with it, so I may try the full recipe around Christmas.

Any idea how far ahead this can be made?

This was wonderful and turned out great. But the time it took to raise the sponge and bread was three times the listed recipe time. Maybe I bought a poor yeast.