Paska Bread

This isn’t as sweet as other paska bread before you put on the glaze. I put in one TABLESPOON of salt for this much flour to give it flavor. If you want a sweet bread, double the sugar. Be fair warned, it raises like a Martian mushroom and is wonderfully fragrant baking.

Flavor and texture was great. I added dried fruit & a bit of powdered sugar glaze on top to finish it off. Delicious!

Excellent recipe. The dough was beautiful to work with and it made 4 huge loaves. The taste is exactly like my Slovak grandmother used to make. Thank you for sharing.

I love this recipe! I make it every Easter. I use 12 cups total of flour, 4 for the sponge and 8 for the dough.

This is pretty close to what my Ukrainian grandmother made every Easter, except we bake it in coffee cans!

12 cups of flour total or for dough only? I added 8cups and stopped because the dough would not take more. I would add more sugar instead. The taste is like a bread, no flavor.It was good for pirojki with cabbage.

I had to cut the recipe in half. Nothing wrong there. However, the result was tasteless. Needless to say, I thought it was disappointing.

Excellent recipe, but I would cut it in 1/2.

I made this for Easter it made plenty I did cut the flour by 3 cups and I added 2 more cups of sugar it came out perfect and for the top I used 1 egg and 4tsp of sugar just for a sweeter taste I will definitely make it again Thank u 😉

I’ll give it a try, but way too much flour, and it probs makes to much. MAKE THE RECIPE LOWER GUYS COME ON I DON’T REALLY WANT TO USE 12 CUPS OF FLOUR PLUS 5!!!!!!!!! REALLY!!!!!

I used a scant tablespoon of sea salt & added 8 oz of softened cream cheese. Then I filled it with chocolate: 10 oz of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/4 cup white sugar & 3 tablespoons butter. Stir together & sprinkle over dough that has been punched down & rolled into a rectangle. I rolled it up & let it rise in a tube pan. I baked it @ 350 degrees for 35 minutes. This was done with 1 of the 3 loaves & I froze the other two for now. Then when I want a fresh loaf I’ll thaw out 1 dough ball let it come to room temperature & fill it with the chocolate.

Wonderful soft, fluffy, brioche-like bread. Here’s what I did: I mixed up the sponge in the morning. I used instant yeast, which doesn’t need proofing; I just mixed it in with the flour, and instead of warm water I used all milk (room temp). I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge all day. Oh, I also cut the sugar to 2 Tbsp. Then, I pulled the sponge out of the fridge around dinnertime, along with the butter and eggs, and gave the sponge a stir (it was at the top of the bowl by then). When everything was room temp, I mixed the dough–using about 1 full teaspoon of lemon zest and 1 Tbsp Kosher salt. I let the dough rise, then divided it into three 2 lb. 5 oz loaves. I shaped the loaves into balls, set them in lightly greased panettone papers, covered them with greased plastic wrap, and put them in the refrigerator overnight. Perfect! The next morning, I pulled them out and brushed them with egg wash while the oven warmed up. I topped one loaf with sprinkles, one with pearl sugar, and left one plain. After baking, I made a confectioners’ sugar glaze with lemon juice and a little milk and covered the plain loaf, then topped with sprinkles. I thought this bread was great; I probably didn’t need to cut the sugar quite so much–maybe next time I’d use 2/3 or 3/4 cup total. This made amazing French toast a couple of days later!

I made this bread for a traditional Orthodox Easter basket. This recipe is wonderful! My pascha was beautiful, and VERY good! I followed the recipe exactly. For baking, though, I made two larger loaves (around 2 1/2 pounds each) instead of three loaves, and I reserved the remaining dough to make braiding around the edge of my bread as well as a braided cross in the middle. I will try to attach a picture. The directions do not say to put the bread loaves in pans, but I did use 9 inch round cake pans for mine. I will keep this recipe and continue to use it for my annual Pascha basket!

My grandmother never wrote any of her recipes down and now she is no longer able to remember them. She has been the paska maker in our family for all of my life, but now it is my turn. I am so grateful for this recipe! My very first paska turned out beautifully! I followed the recipe exactly, except that I only added 8 additional cups of flour (as another reviewer also mentioned). Is it possible that recipe was supposed to include a total of 12 cups…instead of 16? Also, I used quick acting yeast because the regular yeast just did not cooperate for me. I used 3 CorningWare casserole dishes: 1 round 2.5 liter, 1 round 1.6 liter, and 1 oval 2.8 liter. In addition I was able to use the remaining dough to make a batch of cinnamon rolls! This will definitely be our new family paska recipe!

I have been making this Easter bread since the 1970’s. It has become a tradition. Everyone asks for it before Easter and they love it. I have a heavy-duty Kitchen Aide mixer, but mix up half a recipe at a time and only “knead” it in the Kitchen Aide until the dough follows the bread blade around the bowl. I always finish by hand kneading method to prevent my mixer from overheating. This recipe always turns out great. It is fool proof if you follow the directions. Also, mixing up only half a recipe at a time makes the hand kneading easier.

This is a great recipe- my daughter makes this every year for Christmas and Easter, by extended family’s DEMAND, not request. Love you, Gwen!! This makes three very large loaves. Is especially attractive when the dough is braided, like challah. Try this just as written- it’s YUMMY

This bread is fantastic! The only thing I changed was I halved the amount of lemon. Only because I am not a lemon freak. I absolutely love this bread! Oh my gosh gooooooooood!

Outstanding! Made this bread with organic soy milk but otherwise stuck to the recipe. Had to halve it, but still managed to get two delicious loaves. Perfect Easter bread! Takes me back to my Polish great-grandmother’s bread and my Easter in Ukraine!

This recipe was great. This was the first time I tried to make a paska bread since its so far to go to the bakery where we usually buy it now that we’ve moved. The recipe is time consuming, but most baking with yeast does take time. But its not hard and most of it is rising time. The directions were easy to follow and the results looked and tasted great! Thank you so much for posting!!!

This is the recipe that my Slovak Grandmother made every Easter. We used to make 4 types of breads, rolls, and desserts from the basic recipe. First we’d make standard bread using loaf pans. Then we’d make poppyseed and nut rolls by rolling the dough out into a square sheet of dough about 1/2″ thick and covering it with canned poppyseed or nut fillings. We’d drizzle a little honey on top of the filling then roll it up starting at one edge and sealing it with a little bit of water when we came to the other edge. Finally we’d roll the dough out between our hands to make a “rope” about 3/4″ in diameter. This would be cut into 3/4″ pieces and then baked for 20 to 30 minutes until lightly browned to make Babalki(bobalky, bobalki, babalky). The Babalki would be served by coating them with a mixture of warmed honey and canned poppyseed filling just before serving as a dessert.

Half the recipe makes 2 large loaves!