Italian Easter Bread

This easy Easter brunch recipe is a traditional part of Italian and Greek celebrations when family and friends gather to share the holiday meal. My version is slightly sweet with a little lime zest to wake up the flavor.

Jump to:

• ❤️ Why you'll love this recipe
• 🔎 Terms to Know
• 🧾 Ingredients
• 🍞 Italian Easter bread step by step
• 🥫 Storage
• 💭 Things to know
• 👩🏻‍🍳 Frequently asked questions
• 📚 Related recipes
• 🐣 Easter memories
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

❤️ Why you'll love this recipe

This is a glorious way to begin Easter Sunday — or Fourth of July for that matter.

Lightly sweetened, rich, buttery yeast dough is flavored with vanilla and lime, then braided, and baked. Once out of the oven you can either glaze it with a Confectioner's glaze or just dust with Confectioner's sugar as I have here.

I used bread flour in my recipe which creates a more dense, bread-like texture. If you want a softer, cakier texture use all-purpose flour.

I'm not sure what else to say — Italian Easter Bread is as beautiful as it is delicious - it's a fabulous tradition!

🔎 Terms to Know

This buttery Italian Easter Bread is so pretty! It makes a great centerpiece for Easter.

Here are some terms you'll need to know that you might not be familiar with :

• Lime Zest - the finely grated rind (green outer skin) of the lime.
• Doubled (yeast doughs) - The dough is doubled when you can poke your finger in it to the first knuckle and it doesn't fill in. It will actually be double the size it was when you started.
• Deflate the Dough - Do this by gently pressing the dough down until it is flattened.

🧾 Ingredients

• yeast
• sugar
• all-purpose flour
• butter
• water
• eggs
• salt
• lime
• vanilla
• sprinkles
• heavy cream
• Kool Aid for dying eggs

🍞 Italian Easter bread step by step

Note: This is an overview of the instructions. The full instructions are in the green recipe card below.

This will take about 2 hours and 40 minutes.

1. Mix yeast, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 ½ cups flour until smooth.
2. Set aside until doubled, about 1 hour.
3. Cream the butter, 1 cup of sugar, and salt together in a bowl.
4. Stir in the lime zest, juice, and vanilla.
5. Add 3 of the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
6. Add the egg white and mix well.
7. Stir in the yeast mixture and add the remaining flour until a smooth dough forms and pulls away from the bowl.
8. Knead for 5 minutes by machine or 10 minutes by hand.
9. Oil the dough and place it in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise about 1 hour, or until double.

See the images below for steps 10-16.

10. Deflate the dough gently and cut into 4 pieces.
11. Let rest for 5 minutes.
12. Roll each piece into a rope about 18 inches long.
13. Lay 2 ropes next to each other.
14. Loosely braid them together, making sure you can separate the strands to put the 3 of the dyed (raw) eggs in.
15. Seal the ends together to make a ring.
16. Separate the ropes to fit the eggs into the braid.
17. Repeat with the other two ropes, adding the remaining dyed eggs.
18. Let rise until double, about 40 minutes.
19. Preheat the oven to 350F.
20. Bake the loaves in a preheated oven for 10 minutes.
21. Beat the egg yolk and cream. 
22. Remove the bread from the oven. Brush the egg yolk mixture on to the Easter Bread.
23. Decorate with sprinkles.
24. Return to the oven and continue to bake until the loaves sound hollow when tapped, about 30 to 40 minutes.
25. Remove from oven and let cool.

Here are the steps with images to dying the eggs with Kool Aid, speckling them, and creating the Italian Easter Egg Bread wreath.

Use raw, white eggs - they cook in the oven with the bread.

🥫 Storage

Once baked the Italian Easter bread can be stored at room temperature for a day or two IF the eggs are removed. This bread should not be baked ahead of time.

You can freeze it after baking - if you remove the eggs first.

If you'd like to make it ahead of time you can let it rise in the refrigerator overnight and proceed with the recipe the next day. Just shape the bread, add the eggs, cover with plastic wrap and slide into the fridge.

Next day, remove and bake as instructed.

💭 Things to know

This is a pretty simple sweet bread to make but here are a few tips I've found helpful.

Expert Tip: If you bake Italian Easter egg bread the night before serving you'll need to refrigerate it because of the eggs. It's better to shape it and let it rise in the refrigerator overnight and bake it in the morning.

• Be sure to use raw eggs - they'll hard cook in the oven. Some people have said that they had soft yolks after baking but this has never happened to me.
• Test the water anytime you use yeast - it should be right around 110F.
• Make sure ALL of your ingredients are at room temperature or slightly warm to the touch.
• You can put Easter egg bread together the night before and let it rise overnight in the refrigerator.
• If you do plan to let it rise in the refrigerator add about ⅛ teaspoon extra yeast.
• A ¼ teaspoon of almond extract along with the vanilla is delicious -
• Use organic eggs for richer colored dough. The yolks I used were very deep yellow so the bread has the rich look to it that I like. If yours have light yolks you can add a few drops of yellow food coloring to give the bread a richer color.
• You can make this Easter sweet bread into individually sized rolls with one egg in the center or each.
• While the bread will freeze beautifully the eggs will not. Remove them if you plan to freeze.

👩🏻‍🍳 Frequently asked questions

Here are the questions I am most frequently asked about this recipe.

📚 Related recipes

• Easter Bunny Sweet Rolls - Cute, orange sweet rolls shaped like bunnies and glazed with a sticky glaze will make the kids' eyes sparkle! They're so cute!
• White Chocolate Hot Cross Buns - No raisins or dried fruit! This traditional Easter brunch is updated with white chocolate in place of dried fruit.
• Easter Dessert Ideas - If you're not sure what you want you definitely need to check this out. Over 60 possibilities - you'll definitely find something here!
• Strawberry Pound Cake - Moist, dense, and vibrant pink with lots of big strawberry flavor!
• Chocolate Babka - Buttery, flaky dough is swirled with chocolate.
• Coconut Cake - This classic Southern coconut layer cake is SO good with raspberry filling!
• Coconut Pie - This coconut pie is so unique! It's like a pecan pie only with coconut.

🐣 Easter memories

We weren't really a church-going family but we usually went on Easter. Back in the 60s it wasn't just a matter of throwing on some clothes and going, either.

Nope, back then you had layers. A dress with a crisp, scratchy petticoat underneath to hold it out just so. White, lacy socks, white patent leather shoes, white gloves, white purse, little hat, coordinating jacket...

For a tomboy like me (because despite the hours my mom took creating a head full of Shirley Temple style finger curls I was a tomboy to my core) it was hell.

Once dressed we drove to attend service at a very, very, very old church that smelled like polished wood and old lady perfume. It was a five day drive and my dad did not believe in bathroom breaks.

OK. A 20 minute drive that seemed like forever.

What does this have to do with my gorgeous Easter Bread?

Not a thing. I am pretty sure I had Cap'n Crunch and a white chocolate bunny for breakfast most Easter Sundays. My mom was not a woman that enjoyed cooking.

She was, however, an avid nature lover and she painstakingly looked for and found robins' nests so that I could peek at the eggs.

📖 Recipe

First published April 5, 2014. Last updated February 15, 2021 for better instructions and page speed.