Easter Bread is another food experience learned from the time I was an infant. My family has been making it for generations. There wasn’t a written recipe until my mom married my dad and began to write down the family recipes. In fact, I don’t think I have a recipe for it, right now! I keep losing it. I need to get a copy from my mom before next month. heh.
It’s a Portuguese sweet bread, made with anise seed, that my family makes every spring as part of the celebration of Easter. The bread is shaped into rolls which look vaguely like bunnies. The shape is actually supposed to represent the death and rebirth of Jesus, if I recall correctly.
Growing up, our large family would gather to shape huge batches of it with my Grandmother. This was when I was very small, but even the smallest of hands can help shape the bread. First you make two snakes about as long as your forearm. Then you make the two snakes into U’s that overlap at their bases but face in different directions. Then you tie them together, so the bread has two ears and two feet. Just like playing with playdoh!
When we moved North, away from our extended family, my parents continued the tradition. My mom would do most of the mixing, with dad’s help, and then us kids would help to shape it the next day after it had risen all night long. After it was baked, it would get stored in paper grocery bags. Some of the bread would be frozen, to savor later. Some would be eaten still warm from the oven, with butter melting and oozing into the soft, sweet bread.
When I went away to college, my mom began sending me a box with a large baggie of rolls in it. She kept doing that for several years, even after I got married. Then, the packages kept getting smaller and smaller even as Toph, his family and our daughter J all developed a taste for the tangy, sweet bread. When I complained that I was barely getting any for myself any more, my mom wryly said to me, “You know, at some point, you are going to have to make this yourself.” (I just re-read that and think, jeez, I’m a spoiled brat. Truthfully, though, I complained jokingly and was always sure to thank my mother profusely for her gift. I never EXPECTED her to send me the bread…at least, not once I was married. But I am a spoiled brat, nonetheless. *snicker*)
Last year was the first year I was the main maker of Easter Bread in our branch of the family. I went to my parents’ house and made the bread under my mother’s watchful eyes. I was there to learn the tips and tricks that haven’t been written into the recipe: the smooth feel of the dough when it’s had enough flour, the way it looks and feels when it’s ready to be punched down, and the way it should feel before we begin shaping it. The shaping, of course, I’ve known how to do since I was a small child. Now, I’m teaching my children how to do it.
I’ve had cousins, and even an uncle, mention that I should send them some when I make my Easter bread this year. I think I’m too lazy to make it to the post office to send off that many packages, but all of you who have said that are more than welcome to come help make it at my house! Then you can share the bounty.
