Easter Bread Recipe

Ok, yes I was a bad person posting pictures of the Easter Bread and no recipe - bad, bad me. I will type it up now.....and I will type it up combining my notes in with it because the original recipe itself in the family cookbook had very little to it, no one else could make it unless they had made it with Nani over the years.

Nani's Easter Bread

5 pounds of all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 lb yeast (this is where I had to research several years back to find out that six 1/4oz packets of yeast or 15 tsp are equal to 1/4 lb of cake yeast)
3/4 cup warm water
3/4 lb shortening (2 sticks of Crisco less 3 Tbs)
1 quart whole milk
1 Tbs lemon extract
1 Tbs vanilla
1 oz anise seed (over $8!!!)
9 eggs
1/4 cup salt

In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, salt and shortening, cut in as in pie dough, let sit 20-30 minutes.

Dissolve yeast in warm water with 2 Tbs sugar until it proofs

Add water/yeast mixture, milk, lemon extract, vanilla, anise seeds and eggs to flour mixture. Knead until smooth and elastic. Let rise for at least 1 hour or until doubled in size

Cut into pieces big enough to roll into balls about the size of baseballs (we did smaller for these loaves) Roll balls into long strips, braid. Let rise for around an hour.

Brush tops of loaves with beaten egg yolks

Bake at 375 for 35 minutes. Time may vary on size of loaves, we baked ours anywhere from 22-26 minutes since they were smaller and we were using a convection oven.

The original recipe makes around 10 loaves.