Have you seen gorgeous loaves of braided easter bread and wanted to try making it, but thought it looked too complicated or would take too much time to make? Today I’m going to share with you how easy it is to make Italian Easter bread.
Get prepared to wow everyone at the Easter table with this beautiful Easter sweet bread!
This Easter bread recipe not only looks good, but tastes incredible too. The bread is rich, sweet, and has almost the same flavor and consistency of a cinnamon roll, minus the cinnamon and frosting.
Every Easter we have a large family dinner, and we all make something to bring. Whenever I make this Italian Easter bread recipe, I get lots of compliments and it all gets eaten very quickly!
Warning: this bread is very addicting.
Braided Easter Bread Recipe
First, mix up the dough then let it rise until it doubles.
Then roll out the dough and braid it, just like you’re braiding hair.
Tuck some eggs inside the dough ropes, cover, and let rise again.
Brush on an egg wash over the dough, then bake until the bread is a nice golden brown.
Now serve and enjoy! This braided Easter bread is such a treat, and is a wonderful tradition to make each year for the Easter holiday.
Braided Easter Bread
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 packages active dry yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 6 1/2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 6 Tbsp butter, cut into cubes
- 4 eggs
- 4-5 hard-boiled eggs
- 2 Tbsp water
Instructions
- Mix the sugar, yeast, salt, and 2 cups of flour in a large bowl. I used my metal Kitchen Aid bowl and machine.
- Heat milk and butter to 125 degrees in a small saucepan, then add to dry ingredients. Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add 3 eggs, then beat on high for 2 minutes. Add flour until a soft dough is formed. The dough will be sticky.
- Knead the bread by hand until it's smoth and elastic for about 8 minutes, OR use the dough hook and a Kitchen Aid to knead the dough for about 5 minutes.
- Place the dough in a greased bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled for 45 minutes. If you want to use colored hard-boiled eggs in your bread, now is the time to color them, while the dough is rising.
- Punch down the dough that has risen, and split into 3 pieces. Roll each piece of dough into a rope that is 24" long, then make a long braid with the pieces. Place the bread braid on a greased baking sheet and pinch the ends together to make a ring. I stretched my ring out a little from the middle so that there would be a bigger hole in the middle once it was cooked.
- Coat the hard-boiled eggs with a little oil, then tuck inside the dough ropes. Cover the whole thing with a dish towel and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Whisk together the last egg and 2 Tbsp. of water. Brush the egg wash over the dough, avoiding the eggs. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the bread is a nice golden brown. This braided Easter bread can be placed on a cooling rack and served warm, or can be made ahead of time. This recipe was adapted from Taste of Home.
I hope you give this easy Italian Easter bread recipe a try! It’s so soft and light and sweet and is the perfect addition to any meal.
This braided Easter bread recipe was originally posted in March 2016 and was updated in April 2019.
Kelly says
Can you make this dough a day ahead of time?
Laura says
I’ve never tried, but I would assume that you can. If you try it, let me know how it goes!
Kari O'Brien says
I made your Easter bread and it was delicious. Is their a printable version of the recipe anywhere? I want to make it again. Thank you
Laura says
Thanks Kari, so glad you liked it. It’s one of my favorites! I’m in the process of going through my recipe posts and adding them to a recipe plugin to make them printable, so hopefully soon!
Rosanna says
Your Easter bread looks deeeeelish!!
I have made many of these over the years
as we grew up with this Easter tradition.
Can you explain why you lightly coat the coloured eggs with oil? I’ve never seen this step before. Eager to try your recipe!!
Rosanna 🐇
Laura says
Thanks Rosanna, it’s such a fun tradition, isn’t it? I coat the eggs with oil for a couple different reasons. I like to bake regular eggs in the bread and then swap them our for prettier eggs that I’ve dyed, so I want to be able to easily take the eggs out, and I feel like the oil helps with this. Hope that helps!
Linda says
Can you make this Dough In a bread machine and then take it out to rise and do the same steps afterwards
Laura says
I would think so, if you follow your bread machine’s instructions, but I can’t say for sure since I’ve never tried. Good luck!
Amy says
Do you eat the eggs as well, or are they just decorative? And do you dye them before baking or after, in the one that is pastel and gold?
Donna says
How come you don’t dissolve the yeast first? I tried a different recipe, and I dissolved the yeast before adding it to the mixture.
Laura says
It’s not necessary to dissolve the yeast first with this recipe. 🙂
Diana says
Are the eggs edible after boiling them, and then baking them or are they just deciration
Laura says
Great question! I’ve never eaten them after, but you could always try and see how they taste! They might be a bit overcooked. I always use them just for decoration.
Laura says
The eggs are placed in the bread hard boiled then cooked??? Or are they placed in the bread raw and they cook in the oven ???
Laura says
I hard boil them first, then place them in the oven. I don’t want to risk anything and want to make sure those eggs are cooked before touching the bread so that there arent’ any accidents and I don’t have a broken egg in my dough and so that the eggs are cooked and I’m not risking salmonella or anything else. I just feel much better about cooking them first!