Italian Anise Easter Bread
"Making this bread every Easter has been a tradition for my family. It is worth the work at least once a year. Great sliced and toasted with butter for breakfast or just plain. I have recently found that using bread flour helps the bread rise better and I have been able to half this recipe without a problem. You can use butter in place of the Crisco if you wish. Please note it should be 3 .25 oz envelopes yeast, it looks in the way the ingredients came up that its just one envelope but it should be three."
photo by Demandy
- Ready In:
- 9hrs
- Ingredients:
- 11
- Yields:
-
5-6 loaves
- Serves:
- 60
ingredients
- 12 eggs
- 2 1⁄2 cups sugar
- 1⁄2 cup melted butter
- 1⁄2 cup Crisco
- 1⁄2 cup oil
- 1⁄2 cup milk
- 3 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 cup warm water
- 3 (1/4 ounce) envelopes yeast (not rapid rise)
- 16 -20 cups flour (almost 5 lbs.)
- 3 tablespoons anise seeds
directions
- In mixer bowl beat eggs. Add sugar, butter, crisco, oil, milk, and vanilla.
- Dissolve yeast in the warm water. You may want to use a thermometer to be sure the temperature is correct. Let yeast sit until it foams, as in package directions. Add to egg mixture. Add anise.
- Add flour one cup at a time until mixture is unmanageable. Transfer into LARGE pan (Dishpan works well.) and work in remaining flour, kneading with hands.
- Knead until you are too tired to knead any more (half hour?) and then oil top of dough ball, cover, and let rise in warm place 6 hours or overnight.
- Grease 6 loaf pans. Separate dough into 6 parts and knead each again. Cover with towels and let rise in warm place another couple of hours.
- Bake 1 hour at 275 degrees. Do not underbake or they will be hard as a rock. (Top should be lightly browned.).
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Reviews
-
Thank you for this recipe. My Mom used to make this but the recipe was never written down. I made a few alterations: I halved the recipe without a problem. I omitted the vanilla and used all Crisco for the fats. It made 3 loaves. Also, I let the stand mixer do the kneading for me for 15 minutes. -
This was the recipe I was looking for. I was given the recipe years ago by an Italian lady straight from Italy, but over the years I lost it. I loved the bread. The recipe was exactly like mine with one exception. After baking it and letting it cool for about 15 minutes. I frost the loaves with vanilla buttercream frosting, then sprinkle with the little colored cookie sprinkles. The ones that are all different colors and in a ball shape. It is really a nice Easter touch and looks so pretty. That is how my friend decorated her loaves. Anyways , I give this recipe 5 stars. It was wonderful and I followed the directions to a tee for baking.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
Demandy
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is my current home base, but I am from Philly and have also lived in South Florida. I love pastries and baking but I also do lots of fun shortcut dinners.
