Portuguese sweet Easter bread or Folar da Páscoa, is a traditional Portuguese enriched bread made with warm milk, sugar, butter, salt, and yeast, it can have boiled eggs or not inside. It is a airy creamy bread, slightly sweet, with a hint of cinnamon and fennel.
This type of enriched bread is very traditional as an offering on Easter, being a common gift from aunts to her nieces and nephews as a gift (where the nieces and nephews will offer later on flowers like bunches of violets). But its common to be baked and sold all around Easter in Portugal.
Its common in Portugal with several different recipes and variations depending on the regions or even towns, and besides sweet there are also savory Easter breads (recipe soon hehehe), normally stuffed with cured meats.
Although this is called a sweet bread or enriched bread this isn’t like brioche or a pastry like a croissant, this is more like a little richer, little sweet, little aromatic herbs, so its not a fluffy sweet bread, its more rustic and not that sweet, its normally eaten with jams or butter, so lets check the recipe and of course Happy Easter!
Portuguese Sweet Easter Bread • Folar da Páscoa
Nothing says Easter quite like a classic Portuguese sweet Easter bread, also known as Folar de Páscoa in Portuguese. Rich, soft, and full of flavor from fennel and cinnamon, this bread is a delicious way to honor the season.
Ingredients
- Flour – 1kg (T65)
- Milk – 50ml
- Baker’s Yeast – 10gr (1 pack)
- Brown Sugar – 180gr
- Fennel – 2 teaspoons
- Cinnamon – 2 teaspoons
- Butter – 90gr
- Olive Oil – 90gr
- Greek Yogurt – 110gr
- Spirits – 50ml (Aguardente)
- Eggs – 5
- Yolk – 1 (To brush)
- Salt – 1 teaspoon
Directions
- Start the recipe the day before so you have time to let the dough ferment for about 12 hours in total, add the yeast in a bowl with two tablespoons of flour and warm milk, let it rise covered with a cloth for about 2 hours.
- Then in a mixer add the sugar, salt, fennel, cinnamon, soften butter, olive oil, aguardente spirit, greek yogurt and eggs.
- Then add the yeast to the dough and the flour, knead it (if you have a machine you can use it) or take all your frustrations on the dough and knead it by hand on a workbench until you get a homogeneous ball of dough.
- Put this in a bowl 3 times the size (because the dough will grow about 3 times) sprinkled with flour and let it rise with a cloth over it in a warm place (if you don’t have one, heat an oven a little like 50ºC, then turn off the oven put the dough inside and leave it there until the next day or if you are doing this in the morning you can bake at the end of the day).
- When its time to prepare, remove the dough, knead it a little and create two dough balls, you can remove some dough and make a cross of dough on top, a bow or a spiral to decorate.
- Arrange these on a lined baking tray with plenty of room and leave in a warm place (or repeat the oven trick) to rise for another 2 hours to again double in size.
- Finally preheat the oven to 180ºC and brush the dough with the egg yolk, bake for 30 to 35 minutes until well baked, you can see if the bottom is good by tapping the bottom of the bread with your knuckles if the sound is hollow then it’s well baked.
- And that’s it, take it out and it’s ready to serve still warm, this is also a very hardy bread that can easily last for 5 days outside or you can cut slices and freezes these so you can enjoy anytime you want ;D Happy Easter!
This recipe for Portuguese Sweet Easter Bread • Folar da Páscoa was originally created on BakeAfter.com. Esta receita de Folar Fofo da Páscoa foi publicada em português no Iguaria.com.
Nutrition
Per Serving: 259 calories; 8.4 g fat; 41 g carbohydrates; 5.7 g protein; 50 mg cholesterol; 760 mg sodium.Did you try this recipe?
Let me know how it turned out for you! Leave a comment below ;D