My first attempt Paska Bread YUMMY!

An Easter tradition for us when we were in BC was eating Paska Bread.  We never had to make it, because so many of our (General Conference) Mennonite friends made it, but we always enjoyed it!  I’m not exactly sure what the origins of Paska Bread are, but it likely comes from Ukrainian Mennonites who immigrated to Canada.  I’m not sure about the significance of eating Paska Bread at Easter either, but it was kinda the thing to do.  (Paska is Ukrainian for Easter maybe?  But why they make this kind of bread then is unknown to me…There are likely some Christian symbolism that could be drawn, but I’m not familiar with them and won’t venture to guess that here.) The bread is a delicate, fluffy, citrusy kind of yeast bread, and is just a sweet treat for Easter.

I ventured to make Paska Bread this year, because I was missing it a LOT. Isn’t it funny how food reminds us of certain times, and vice versa?  Someone mentioned paska and I was all of a sudden thinking about Easter! I had to give it a try myself!

A friend of mine who makes it here locally talked about having to be very careful with mixing times, beating the heck out of the eggs before adding the sugar and vanilla and stuff.  I wasn’t aware of needing to do that, but ended up beating the eggs for a long time because I was prepping other stuff so it just worked.  She also said that you have to be really delicate with the dough – I didn’t know that either, so I just treated it like regular dough.  My friend’s paska is MORE citrusy, with lemon oil and orange oil.  Other versions include raisins, or cinnamon, or cherries, or swirls in the center of the bread, or other things, but a light citrus yeast bread is a good description for all of the variations I’ve ever had.

As far as I can tell, my first try at Paska Bread worked, and it’s YUMMY!  It may not be as light and fluffy or as citrusy as others, but everybody who has tried it so far as enjoyed it immensely. My kiddos decided that it’s OUR new tradition for Easter, too. It’s not a difficult recipe, but since it’s a yeast bread, and the recipe makes 6 to 8 loaves, it’s a LOT of work to make the dough and knead it and punch it down again!  I would say, though, that it’s MORE than worth it!

Paska (Easter) Bread
Recipe by my BC friend, Kristine A.

3 cups scalded milk
2 ½ cups sugar
1 cup butter
8 eggs
1 tsp salt
Rind (zest) of 2 oranges
2 tsp vanilla
3 Tbsp yeast
½ cup warm water
Flour, to make soft dough (about 17 cups)

Soften yeast in warm water. Scald milk (this is still necessary as the whey in the milk will cause a slight difference in rising). Remove from heat and add butter. Mix in sugar and eggs, salt, orange zest and vanilla. Add yeast mixture. Stir in flour a little at a time until you have a soft dough. Knead a few minutes, adding flour as needed. Place in a greased bowl. Let rise double in bulk (this bread is a slow riser, allow at least 3 hours). Punch down dough, form into 6 loaves. Place dough in prepared (greased and floured) loaf pans. Let rise until double again (allow 2-3 hours). Bake in a 325F oven for 30 minutes or until done.

When cool, slice ½ inch thick slices. Serve with Paska Spread (recipe below) at Easter time.

Paska Spread

500g carton cottage cheese
¼ cup soft butter or margarine
½ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
small ball rainbow sprinkles

Drain cottage cheese in a strainer. Put drained cottage cheese, margarine, sugar, and vanilla into a food processor. Blend a few minutes until smooth. Spread on Paska Bread and sprinkle with small rainbow sprinkles as an Easter treat.

Find more recipes in my Scrumptious Saturday and Scrumptious Sunday posts.