Celebration Easter Bread Recipe

Easter meals look a little different for everyone, from soul-satisfying breakfast spreads and festive after-church brunches to more formal family-style dinners complete with your best dinnerware and linens. This festive Easter bread recipe is an ideal centerpiece for an Easter gathering of any kind and can be served at any point in the meal.

This brioche-style bread is enriched with butter and eggs, and an extra yolk for a little extra tenderness and flavor. It's also flavored with clover honey, orange and lemon zest, and fresh-squeezed orange juice for a slightly sweet and beautifully fragrant bread that tastes great on its own. "I like to use Cara-Cara oranges for this recipe as an affectionate goodbye to winter," says recipe developer Jenny Kellerhals. "It's a type of navel orange that's got a lovely color, is more sweet and floral than other oranges, and reaching the end of its season as spring sets in."

For those who observe the more religious aspects of the holiday, the three-strand braid is representative of the Holy Trinity, with the round shape symbolizing Christ's crown of thorns. Eggs are tucked into the bread's strands, representing the promise of new life. Finally, the bread is finished with colorful sprinkles for a celebratory touch. While this bread is slightly sweet, it's great served with salty butter, Easter ham, or a warm cup of coffee or tea while Easter egg hunts ensue. Here's how to make a celebration Easter Bread this holiday.

There's a good chance you have most of the ingredients for this Easter bread recipe in your pantry and refrigerator already if you're a regular baker. The essential ingredients include milk, a lemon and orange, vanilla extract, honey, instant yeast, eggs for baking and decorating, all-purpose flour, sugar, Kosher salt, and unsalted butter. Before mixing, the butter should soften to room temperature. Wash and dry the lemon and orange. You will also need a whisk, stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, bowl scraper, bench scraper, half-sheet tray, parchment paper, cooking spray, plastic wrap, and a pastry brush. Sprinkles to decorate are optional, and a 6-inch entremet ring or oven-safe bowl is needed to shape your dough.

We used naturally-colored blue, green, and brown heirloom eggs as well as small speckled quail eggs to decorate the bread in this recipe, but you can also use dyed or plain eggs instead. The eggs used for decorating do not need to be pre-cooked, since they'll cook while the bread is baking. Additionally, if using dyed eggs, make sure the eggs have had plenty of time to dry completely before baking to reduce the amount of colored dye that spreads onto the dough.

Into the bowl of a stand mixer bowl, measure the milk, vanilla extract, honey, instant yeast, 2 whole eggs, and egg yolk. Zest the lemon and orange directly into the bowl, then squeeze and add the juice from the orange. Whisk it all together until the honey dissolves into the liquids and let the mix rest while you scale out the dry ingredients.

Measure out the all-purpose flour, sugar, and Kosher salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the bowl, then attach the bowl to your stand mixer. Fit the machine with the dough hook. On low speed (KitchenAid speed 2), mix the ingredients until they come together into a cohesive dough ball, that is no longer scrappy — about a minute.

Raise the mixing speed to medium (KitchenAid speed 5) to start developing the dough. Pinch pieces of the softened butter and add them to the mixing dough over the course of a minute. After about 3 more minutes of mixing, the butter should be completely incorporated into the dough. At this point, the dough will begin to loosen and stick to the sides of the bowl.

Raise the speed of the mixer once more to medium-high (KitchenAid speeds 7-9), or as high as your machine will allow without struggling or overheating. Continue to mix the dough for 7 to 10 minutes, until it pulls away from the sides and bottom of the bowl, and picks up most of the dough that rings the bowl. The dough should be strong enough to do this on its own, but you may need to help it out by scraping down the bowl once during the kneading process. If mixing at a lower speed, this process may take up to 25 minutes.

With a plastic bowl scraper, scrape down and lift the dough ball out of the stand mixer bowl. Quickly spray the bowl with oil, and return the dough to the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for an hour and a half in a warm place. Move the dough to the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes, and up to two hours. Since this dough has a higher amount of fat, chilling the dough makes it easier to handle while shaping without over-stretching or losing its shape.

On a lightly-floured counter, turn the dough out of the bowl, deflate it slightly with your hands, and divide it into 3 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a log, then roll and stretch the logs into strands. Try to keep the strands about the same thickness and length. The final length should be about 24 to 26 inches long. Pinch the three strands together at one end, then braid the dough together. The braid should be tight, but not so tight that it stretches the dough strands out of shape. Once the full length is braided, leave the ends of the strands loose.

Line a half-sheet tray with parchment paper, and spray a 6-inch ring with cooking spray (if using). Transfer the dough braid to the sheet tray, and gently wrap it around the ring. Tuck the starting end of the dough underneath the loose ends, and braid the ends of loose strands around it to attach the ends. Gently loosen strands with your fingers to tuck in eggs, adding an egg every 2 or 3 folds. Cover the tray gently with plastic wrap and proof the dough once more for about an hour, until the dough is tender and puffy to the touch. While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 350 F with a rack placed in the center of the oven.

If you don't have a metal baking ring, you can also use an oven-safe metal, glass, or ceramic bowl to shape your dough around. If using a glass or ceramic bowl, you can leave the bowl in place after baking for butter, dip, or anything else you'd like to serve with the bread. You can also free-form the dough into a ring.

Beat the remaining whole egg in a small bowl for the egg wash. Remove the plastic wrap from the proofing dough, and gently paint the egg wash onto the dough with a pastry brush (the decorative eggs do not need an egg wash). Add sprinkles and nonpareils if desired, and bake for about 30 minutes. The dough will puff, and turn a rich golden-brown color. You should be able to smell the citrus and buttery sweetness once the bread gets close to finished. Remove the ring, and allow the dough to cool slightly before serving.

Once cool enough to handle, transfer the celebration Easter bread to a decorative serving plate. It can easily double as the centerpiece for your Easter table. The bread can be sliced or torn into servings, and the baked eggs can be removed and refrigerated to be eaten later if desired. This bread is tasty enough to be enjoyed on its own, but can be served with whipped salty or sweet butter, jam, or even a dollop of cream. It also tastes great alongside baked ham and turkey, and makes for great little sandwiches with any leftovers you may have. If storing the bread, wrap it tightly with plastic wrap. If the eggs have been removed, or you don't plan on eating them, store the bread at room temperature for up to 2 days, or in the refrigerator for 1 day.