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Easter breads and cakes


jackal10

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The time of year reminded me that I should make Simnel Cake, but I'm sure there are many other local traditions.

UK:

Simnel Cake: A light fruit cake with a marzipan core, and traditionally 12 toasted marizipan balls on top (the Apostles), and perhaps glace apricots...

Originally for Mothering Sunday, but now often served at Easter. The tradition is that servant maids were allowed to make them at the Big House, and then take them home for Easter.

Hot Cross Buns Spiced fruit buns with a slip cross on top

Saffron breads.

A quick Google reveals many more - breads with eggs in them, cheezy breads, tortes with spring greens, greek Tsourekia, Bulgarian kozunak Italian Columba and Pane Pasquali, Rusiian Paska, and others from Poland and Portugal.It would be better to hear from those with personal knowledge.

Speak to me of Easter baking traditions:

Edited by jackal10 (log)
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I don't know if this is traditional all over Austria, or just the region my Mom comes from (Southeastern) but they have a wonderful Easter Bread called "Milchbrot' or 'Milk Bread".

It's a simple round loaf, which used milk, flour, salt, sugar and butter and is flavored with lemon zest and rasins. It has a fine, slightly sweet crumb and is wonderful for breakfast slathered with sweet butter. **It can also be formed into a "Big Twist" by braiding together three strands.

Not from my family, but I've also had Pastiera Napoletana (Neopolitan Wheat and Ricotta Easter Pie) which uses cooked, hulled wheat kernerls in the filling in addition to sweetened and egg-enriched ricotta.

I've also made a similar Italian, Easter tart-- "Pizza de Ricotta alla Grottese". A tart filled with a ricotta filling enriched w/eggs and flavored w/vanilla, anisette, cinnamon and candied citron. I love this!

They serve it all year round now, but a somewhat local SF tradition at Easter is the Sacripantina Cake from Stella Pasticceria e Caffe (446 Columbus Ave.) in North Beach. (The Italian Section). It's basically spongecake layers filled with zabaglione cream--then covered with crushed amaretti and/or topped with shaved bittersweet chocolate. (The cake does have origins in Italy, it's just also been well known at Stella's for a long time).

( Emily Luchetti has a recipe for this cake in her first dessert book, "Star's Desserts"; it's a cake that I've made several times for Easter or for other special celebrations.)

Edited by ludja (log)

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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Saturday I will be making hot cross buns with diced candied orange peel inside, and an orange zest icing for the cross. And of course tiny baking powder biscuits to go with our Easter Ham.

My sister-in-law makes Greek Easter bread, Tsoureki, but we will have to wait for that since Greek Easter isn't until May 1 this year.

Heather Johnson

In Good Thyme

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Being Ukrainian we won't be celebrating Easter till Mayand my mom and I will be baking Paskas and Babkas the week before. Both breads are round and tall and we usually bake them in tall cans or deep springform pans.

Paskas are a richer version of Kolach (the Christmas egg bread) and the Babkas are even sweeter and richer, similar to brioches and usually glazed.

Paska can either be made with oil or butter, but Babkas are made with lots of butter and egg yolks.

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My Polish-American grandmother always made a raisin babka for Easter. It looks like another Polish girl from New Jersey does the same: Martha Stewart's Easter babkarecipe looks very similar to the one my grandma used, although she always baked it in a round pan.

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In Romania there's cozonac and pasca.

Cozonac is a sweet bread, fluffy and seldom plain - with either pieces of lokum or raisins, or a filling made of cocoa and walnuts, or cocoa and poppy seeds.

Pasca is a tart made with the same sweet bread dough with a cheese filling (much like a cheesecake) with raisins and lemon peel.

The human mouth is called a pie hole. The human being is called a couch potato... They drive the food, they wear the food... That keeps the food hot, that keeps the food cold. That is the altar where they worship the food, that's what they eat when they've eaten too much food, that gets rid of the guilt triggered by eating more food. Food, food, food... Over the Hedge
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In Switzerland, you'll find Easter Cakes in evey bakery. They are made of pastry, rice, almonds and raisins and are offered mostly in small, round sizes with 3" or 5" diameter.

At the bottom of this page under "Related Story" you can find a detailed recipe (click on "Osterflade"). My bakery is 50 yards away. I've never made them myself.

Edited by Boris_A (log)

Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler.

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I'm making Pan Ramerino which are the Italian version of hot cross buns. They are made with rosemary and olive oil along with the raisins.

I also make Gubana the Easter bread from Friuli which is coiled like a snail (thus the name) and has a spiral of filling inside.

I too have made the Pasteria and love it with the bite of the wheat berries and the ricotta.

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Has anyone ever made a lamb cake ? A hinged, 3-D mold is used to make the cake.

I thought of this and was wondering what tradition it came from or if it was a newer "American" thing. According to Google it has a tradition in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Some of the newer, ?american recipes recommend decorating with coconut...

Typically the table also includes a butter lamb shaped by hand, in a mold, or purchased from delis and Polish markets. This lamb is always included in the basket to be blessed.

  The lamb also appears in the dessert form of the Lamb Cake, a pound cake shaped and decorated, often sitting atop Easter grass, and always carrying the Resurrection Banner.

and here

According to the Catholic Culture Web site, the dessert is a Czech folk tradition. The custom is to bake beranek, a white cake made in a lamb-shaped mold, on Green Thursday, the Thursday before Easter, and to serve the cake on Easter Sunday.

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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My hot cross buns are in their first rise as we speak -- with lots of currants and lemon zest.

Barbara Laidlaw aka "Jake"

Good friends help you move, real friends help you move bodies.

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  • 1 year later...

There is a new thread in Pastry and Baking here that continues the discussion on regional Easter pastries, cakes and breads around the world.

Edited by ludja (log)

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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  • 5 years later...

I am.

I'm baking the bread pascha made by Lemkos, a dry outer white bread surrounding a inner sweet yellow bread. It's baked like a Russian kulich in a coffee can so it's tall. We made nit and poppyseed rolls yesterday as well as the Artos, a chickpea flour bread kept on the altar during Bright Week.

I made the siret cheese-custard Wednesday as well as the Pascha cheese thingy you spread on the bread.

Kevin

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I am.

I'm baking the bread pascha made by Lemkos, a dry outer white bread surrounding a inner sweet yellow bread. It's baked like a Russian kulich in a coffee can so it's tall. We made nit and poppyseed rolls yesterday as well as the Artos, a chickpea flour bread kept on the altar during Bright Week.

I made the siret cheese-custard Wednesday as well as the Pascha cheese thingy you spread on the bread.

Kevin

Wow - I am not familiar with these. Do you have more detail and/or photos?

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I'm baking both saffron bread and saffron cake tomorrow.

The bread recipe is this one which I have prepared several times in the past few years.

The cake recipe I usually prepare is a Cornish type cake with currants and mixed peel. I have decided to put this one aside this year and prepare

this one which has been highly recommended by a friend.

I just made the almond paste this afternoon.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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I'm baking both saffron bread and saffron cake tomorrow.

The bread recipe is this one which I have prepared several times in the past few years.

The cake recipe I usually prepare is a Cornish type cake with currants and mixed peel. I have decided to put this one aside this year and prepare

this one which has been highly recommended by a friend.

I just made the almond paste this afternoon.

Interesting. I've been meaning to make a saffron bread or saffron cake. I've thought about making Swedish Lussekatter for St. Lucia Day in Dec, but never seem to find the time.

Thanks for including the saffron cake link!

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I am.

I'm baking the bread pascha made by Lemkos, a dry outer white bread surrounding a inner sweet yellow bread. It's baked like a Russian kulich in a coffee can so it's tall. We made nit and poppyseed rolls yesterday as well as the Artos, a chickpea flour bread kept on the altar during Bright Week.

I made the siret cheese-custard Wednesday as well as the Pascha cheese thingy you spread on the bread.

Kevin

Wow - I am not familiar with these. Do you have more detail and/or photos?

I'd also love to see some photos, too. I've tried a tall Czech-style Pascha bread, but have never seen a white bread surrounding a yellow bread. Sounds perfect for Easter. ;-)

Edited by phoenikia (log)
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