Recipe(tried): Greek Easter Bread (Tsoureki)

EASTER TWIST - TSOURKI

This is one I"ve made for many years and my family and friends always love it.

1 pkg active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teasp. salt
1 teasp. vanilla
1 teasp. grated lemon peel
3-1/4 cups unsifted all purpose flour
5 hard cooked eggs, dyed red
1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
3 tablespoon slivered blanched almonds

Sprinkle yeast into the warm water; stir just to blend, and let stand until dissolved. Scald milk and let cool to lukewarm. Beat butter until creamy, and beat in sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla and lemon peel. Stir in yeast mixture and milk. Gradually add 2 cups of the flour and beat for 5 minutes. Gradually add remaining flour, using a heavy duty mixer or wooden spoon.

Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and no longer sticky, about 5 to 10 minutes. If necessary, knead in additional flour. Place dough in a greased bowl, butter the top lightly, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled - about 1-1/4 hours.

Turn out dough on lightly floured board and knead lightly. Divide into 3 equal pieces. Roll and stretch each into a strand about 26 inches long. Place strands parellel and pnch top ends together. Braid. Transfer to greased baking sheet and form into a wreath. Pinch ends to seal. Press dyed eggs upright in dough at equally spaced intervals. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 40 minutes.

Brush egg yolk mixture evenly over braid without coating eggs. Sprinkle bread with almonds. Bake in 325 degree F oven 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm or let cool and reheat.

Makes 1 bread ring.

This is from GREEK COOKING by Lou Seibert Pappas - back about the early '70's.

I do a few things differently . I usually make the dough in my bread machine on the dough/manual cycle and then just shape etc. Saves time and comes out great. Sometimes i make the wreath but often I make a long straight braid -- or 2 smaller long braids. We do not hard cook the eggs - when we lived in Greece, a friend taught me to color them raw .... saying that they hard-cook enough while baking - and this is true. If you hard-cook them first - and thn bake -- they get VERY rubbery in case anyone DOES want to eat them. Red is the traditional color for eggs in Greece -- but I've been known to color them in pastels - peach, turquoise, etc. To each his own!