Paska, Easter Bread

Easter is one of my and my family favourite holidays. From childhood I remember  its rich traditions, like the blessing of a basket of Easter foods which becomes the Easter Sunday brunch, being the first meat meal, after a strict fast on Good Friday and Saturday. One of the special foods in that basket is a round shaped Easter Bread, called Paska in Romanian or Paszka in Hungarian. The top of this bread is  decorated with a cross dough ornaments. This is  my family Paska recipe, which makes one large loaf.

Ingredients:

500gm sifted all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten

25gm fresh yeast or 20gm dry yeast

1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 cup milk, lukewarm
1/4 cup melted butter
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. lemon zest

50 gm raisins ( optional)


Directions:

• In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water. Let stand for 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile, scald the milk. Add the sugar, stirring with a whisk until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat, and let cool.Add the beaten eggs, sugar, melted butter, salt, and  lemon zest. Mix thoroughly. Stir in enough flour to make dough that is neither too soft nor too stiff.
• Knead until the dough no longer sticks to the hand.
• Turn the dough on a floured board, or other work surface, and knead until smooth and satiny.
• Place in a bowl, cover, and let it rise in a warm place until double in bulk.
• Punch down and let it rise again.
• Prepare your loaf pans by thoroughly greasing them with shortening.
• Divide the dough into 2 parts, leave a small part for ornamental decorations.
• To make ornaments, one of them being the cross, you roll out some dough into a rope like shape and form it into an ornamental cross to place in the middle of the top of the bread.
• After loaf is decorated, dip a pastry brush in whole egg, and gently brush the bread tops, and ornaments, to give them a nice golden color once baked. 
• Set the loaves in a warm place, once more, until almost double in bulk. Do not let the loaves rise longer than necessary, because the ornaments will lose their shape.
• Preheat you oven to 400 degrees, and bake the bread for 10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350 degrees, and bake for 30 minutes longer, or until done.
• Remove the loaf from the pan, and cool completely by covering the whole with a clean cloth a bit humid.

To thaw, keep covered, to prevent from drying out.