Even though majority of Italians follow the Christian faith for long, such of those who are Coptic Christians do not follow the religion in practice. For several centuries religion has been playing a vital role in the lives of the Italians.
We find certain practices that were emerged from Christianity and that are seen even today among the Italians. One such traditional celebration is the Easter which is construed to be a very important holiday in the year.
The way the Italians celebrate Easter is unique indeed because they celebrate it with lots of mouth-watering food items. As Easter is preceded by a forty day lent period that involves fasting too, it is celebrated with lots of delicious food as well.
Over the years the special kinds of foods put together for Easter have been recorded as Italian Easter cuisine. Amongst the different recipes they used to prepare on the big day was the bread that is now famous as Italian Easter bread.
You can prepare the Italian Faster bread yourselves in not more than an hour. If you want to give it some interesting looks then you can go with the old school Italian and Swiss style of adorning the bread with coloured eggs to give it a festive appearance.
Italian Easter bread does not press for the use of special substances for its preparation. Instead it would suffice to have margarine, all purpose flour, eggs, salt, sugar and active dry yeast for its preparation. Blanched almonds, a teaspoon of anise seeds and mixed candied fruit may serve as special ingredients.
Yeast, adequate sugar, one cup of flour and salt should be first mixed in a bowl. To this mix add butter and milk and beat for about two minutes. Do not dilute the mixture and so beating has to be done to the medium. After adding two eggs and half a cup of flour beat the mixture again for two minutes. To this mixture special ingredients including nuts, aniseeds and fruits may be added and the whole substance should be well mixed. Add the remaining part of the flour to this mixture to make it a soft dough that eases the work further.
Upon a lightly floured surface the dough has to be placed and the flour has to be kneaded for about six to eight minutes till it becomes smooth and elastic. After greasing a bowl keep the dough inside it. Put the bowl in a warm place after fully covering it. You will find the dough doubled after nearly an hour or so.
Uncooked coloured eggs may be added now if you would like. Bake the bread for around half an hour in an oven in 350 degrees and hurray! Your Italian Easter bread is ready to eat.
Traditional Italian Easter bread is is an integral part of Easter celebrations. If you would like to know more about other recipes check out our page on traditional Italian Easter cake.