Paska (Ukrainian Easter Bread). Ukrainian Easter bread or paska (which means Easter) is a slightly sweet egg bread that can be decorated with religious symbols. It's traditionally taken to church on Easter morning in a special basket with other foods to be blessed. One of the special foods in that basket is a round-shaped Easter Bread, called Paska in Ukrainian, or Babka in Polish.
Paska is a Ukrainian Easter Bread, but it's also popular through a lot of Eastern Europe, as well as areas with a lot of Ukrainian immigrants.
You know, like my hometown - Winnipeg!
For Ukrainians bread is one of the essential foods, it is true for Easter foods, too.
You can have Paska (Ukrainian Easter Bread) using 14 ingredients and 12 steps. Here is how you cook it.
Ingredients of Paska (Ukrainian Easter Bread)
- You need of Ingredients.
- It's 1/2 cup of Warm Water.
- You need 1 tsp of Granulated Sugar.
- Prepare 2 packets of active dry yeast (4.5 tsp).
- It's 3/4 cup of butter softened.
- You need 2 cups of sugar.
- You need 8 of large eggs beaten.
- You need of Juice of 1 lemon.
- You need of Juice of 2 oranges.
- You need 1 tsp of salt.
- Prepare 1 1/2 cups of scalded milk, cooled.
- You need 12 cups of flour.
- Prepare 2 of large egg yolks.
- It's 1 tbsp of water.
Paska is large bread of round form made of white flour and often decorated with a cross and other suitable Easter ornamentation (pine cones or rosettes) created with dough. Paska is sometimes studded with raisins. Cover and allow to rise in a warm place until light and bubbly. This traditional Polish egg bread is wonderfully light with a slightly sweet flavor.
Paska (Ukrainian Easter Bread) step by step
- Stir sugar into warm water. Sprinkle yeast on top of sugar water, gently incorporate. Allow to sit for 10-15 minutes, until bubbly..
- In a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, continue to cream until well incorporated and fluffy once more..
- Add juices, zest, and salt to the mixture, mix until combined. Add scalded milk, continue to mix until well incorporated and smooth. Add 4 cups of flour, combine well. Add yeast mixture, mix until well incorporated..
- If you have a dough hook attachment for your mixer, affix it now. Slowly add remaining flour until a good, coherent bread dough comes together. It should be only very slightly sticky to the touch – not super sticky, and not really DRY..
- Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and knead for a few minutes. Dough should be smooth, elastic, and no longer sticky when it’s been kneaded enough..
- Put dough into a lightly greased bowl or pot, cover top with plastic wrap, and allow to rise in a warm area until doubled in size, about 1 ½-2 hours. Once doubled, beat down the middle of the dough and allow to rise another hour..
- Now here’s the fun part. Reserve about ⅓ of the dough for decorations, and divide remaining dough out among the pans you’ll be using (grease them first!). For reference, we used a 9″ round pyrex pot, a large loaf pan, and 3 mini loaf pans to bake ONE batch of this. It makes a *LOT* of bread… this is a good thing!.
- For the main body of your breads, you’ll want the dough to fill about ⅓ of each baking pan – they’ll rise like crazy. Halfway full if you’re adventurous, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Cover loosely pans and reserved ⅓ dough loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rise another 30 mins..
- Once your 30 minutes are up, use the reserved dough to make designs on the top of each loaf. Braids, twists, curls, crosses and rosettes are popular/traditional, but have fun with it. (Google can be a great source of design inspiration.) Toothpicks can be used to help secure designs in place until after baking. Cover loosely with plastic, allow to rise one last time, 30 minutes..
- While your dough is rising, whisk together the remaining egg yolks and water to create an egg wash. This glaze will give your finished Paska a shiny, dark brown finish. Beautiful!.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Once final rise is finished, brush entire top of each loaf with egg wash. Bake loaves for 10 minutes. Without opening the oven door, lower the heat to 325°F and continue to bake for another 40 minutes..
- Cool Paska for 10-15 minutes (if you can handle the wait), then gently remove from pans and tranfer to a wire rack or wooden cutting board to continue cooling..
Paska (also known as Kulich) is a classic Easter Bread. It's a wonderful Easter tradition shared by Russian and Ukrainian people. This recipe comes from my aunt Tanya and cousin Lena; thank you so much! Easter only comes once a year so don't panic when I tell you how long it takes to make this. Beat well and place in bread machine.