Greek Easter Bread

I suggest making delicious, aromatic Greek Easter bread for Easter. A braided pigtail with decorated eggs looks very impressive. Undoubtedly, these pastries will decorate your Easter table.

Cook: 2 hours

Ingredients

• Flour – 600 g
• Sugar – 100 g
• Fresh yeast – 40 g
• Warm water – 50 ml
• Milk – 250 ml
• Softened butter – 125 g
• Candied fruits – 100 g
• Zest of one lemon
• Ground star anise – 1 pc.
• Boiled eggs – 5 pcs.
• Yolk – 1 pc.
• Sesame seeds – 1 tbsp
• Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp

Directions

1. Dough. Dissolve yeast with warm water and 1 teaspoon. sugar. Add 3 tbsp flour, knead the liquid dough. Cover with a napkin and leave in a warm place to rise for 15 minutes.
2. Remove the zest from the lemon. Chop candied fruits if desired. Mix the softened butter and sugar in a bowl. Add dough, warm milk, stir. Let’s start kneading the dough. Add some flour and mix. Pour the zest and candied fruits. Next, add the remaining flour and knead the dough well. Knead the dough well on the table for about 5 minutes. Cover the bowl with a clean towel, place in a warm place, and leave for about 1 hour.
3. Dough cutting. The dough has doubled, now it needs to be kneaded. Divide the dough into 4 parts. Three parts are the same, and the fourth is slightly larger.

   

4. We make 70 cm long sausages from three identical parts. Weave a loose pigtail. Roll out the fourth part into a pigtail-length sausage, put it on the pigtail, and press a little.
5. Place boiled eggs greased with vegetable oil on top. Leave the Easter bread warm to come up. Brush with egg yolk (+ some milk), sprinkle with sesame seeds.
6. Bake Easter bread in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for about 40 minutes. Let the bread cool completely. We extract the eggs from the bread and exchange them for beautiful colored eggs. We put the bread on the festive table in the center. Christ is risen!