Belarusian

Passport & Plate - Easter Bread

Belarus | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 2 photos

Ingredients
500 ml whole milk
11 g dry yeast
1-1.3 kg flour
6 fresh eggs
200 g home-made butter
250-300 g sugar
300 grams raisins
1 tsp vanilla sugar

 

How to prepare this recipe
Slightly warm milk in a bowl and dissolve yeast in it. Add 500 g of flour, stir well. Put the bowl in a warm place. (You can boil the water and put the bowl over it). Cover it with a towel. The dough should double in size (it takes about 30 minutes or more).

Separate the whites from the yolks. Mix yolks with sugar and vanilla sugar. Beat whites with a pinch of salt to a lather. Add the yolks to the dough and mix. Then add the softened butter and mix. Then add whites and mix. Add the remaining flour (you may need a little more or less, depending on the quality of flour) and knead the dough well. It takes some work – the dough should not be steep and should not stick to your hands. Again, cover the dough, put it in a warm place and let the dough rise well (it will take about one hour).

Soak raisins in warm water for 10-15 minutes, then drain all the water. Soak raisins in brandy, roll in flour. Add the raisins to the dough, stir again and put the dough in a warm place. The dough should rise well, but this time it will less.

Grease the baking tin, sprinkle with corn flour, put the dough to 1/3 the height of the tin. Cover with a towel. Let the dough rise again. Put in a preheated to 100 ° C oven and bake the bread for 10 minutes. Increase the temperature to 180 ° C and bake for another 25 minutes.

Hint: Pierce the bread with a toothpick, if it is dry, the bread is ready.

 

The story behind this recipe
In 2011, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was immediately checked into the hospital for the surgery and then she had to stay there for post-surgery treatment. It happened around Easter time.

For any average Belarusian family, Easter has always meant culinary skills competition – you get to color eggs in the onion shell, roast veal with garlic, take the horse radish out from the cellar and, more importantly, bake Easter bread. The bread you share with the neighbors. The bread that it is believed to bring good luck to the family if it comes out good.

My mom has always prepared for Easter in advance, getting the freshest eggs, butter and milk from the farmers market. She would get up early in the morning, tie her hair with an old-fashioned kerchief, close the doors and hush at anybody who would make noise because “the dough didn’t like it”. Some years she would even sing to please the dough.

In my memory, no one has even been strong enough to bear the last day of fasting and not to taste a slice of that bread fresh from the oven. And then the neighbors, one by one, would drop by with a slice of bread they baked. At the end of the day you would have tried the bread from the entire neighborhood and make your verdict, who baked the best bread.

In spring of 2011, I realized that I either had to fall into depression or follow the Easter tradition without any idea of how to do it. It has always been my mom’s job and I have never cooked. I spent the whole day searching because I couldn’t find my mom’s recipe. Then, in the old fat culinary book we never used I found a recipe that looked “doable”.

Nervous as I could be, I followed the recipe and what my mom has always done – wake up early in the morning, tie up the hair, close the doors, be in a good mood, hum the song, believe, and share the bread with the people you care about.

That spring two miracles happened – the bread I baked came out great, the best of all neighbors, and my mom got well again.