Italian Easter cheese bread recipe
This luscious Italian Easter cheese bread has soft crumbs with an indulgent cheese aroma. A true pleasure for your nose and palate. Serve it with cured meats, cheese, and boiled eggs as Italian do for Easter breakfast. Also, It is a great all year round recipe, made as an appetizer with salami or for pic-nics.
Prep Time15 minutes mins
Cook Time50 minutes mins
Rise time8 hours hrs
Course: Appetizer
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 6 people
Calories: 767kcal
Biga
- 100 gr strong bread flour 13% protein
- 70 gr water room temperature
- 8 gr fresh yeast cold from the fridge
Easter cheese bread
- 400 gr strong bread flour 13% protein
- 100 gr whole milk cold from the fridge
- 100 gr Parmigiano Reggiano grated
- 130 gr Pecorino Romano grated
- 60 gr olive oil extra virgin
- 60 gr lard take it out from the fridge 5 minutes before starting
- 4 medium eggs room temperature
- 10 gr Maldon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black peppercorn
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg grated
- 100 gr Gruyere cheese cut it into small cubes
Make the biga
Dissolve the yeast into the water in a small bowl. Add the flour and mix until you have a smooth dough. It should be slightly sticky, don’t add more flour to it. The biga will helps the dough to rise as it is quite heavy.
Cover the bowl and leave it to rise for two hours in the oven at 26°c. The biga should more than double in size.
Make the batter
Add the Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Romano, eggs, olive oil, lard, milk, salt, nutmeg and black pepercorn into a medium bowl. Mix with a fork until combined, cover it and set aside.
Make the dough
Add 5 spoons of the flour, 5 spoons of the batter, and the biga in pieces into the bowl of the stand food mixture. Knead for a few minutes at low speed using a dough hook.
In two stages add the rest of the batter and flour at intervals. Knead until you have a smooth dough at speed 1.
Tip the dough onto a worktop and knead for a few minutes. No need to add any flour as the dough is not sticky. Widen the dough, helping with your hands, and add the Gruyere cheese in 3 stages. Knead the dough every time you add the cheese. Knead until the cheese is combined.
Shape the dough into a ball shape using your hands. Place the dough inside the paper baking mould. Cover it and leave it to rise in the oven, turned off*, for 6/7 hours at 26°c. The dough should rise until it reaches 2 cm from the edges. In case it has not risen for the given time just give it some more time to rise.
Bake the dough
Preheat the oven to 180°c; 160°c fans; 350°c or 4 gas mark once the dough has risen.
Place your paper baking mould with your dough in a baking tray and bake it for 50/60 minutes, always check as every oven is differents. The Easter bread will be ready once each will have a nice brown colour. To double-check, place a toothpick inside the bread, if ready it should come out dry.
Let it cool down before serve.
All recipes are developed and tested in Metric grams. I strongly recommend using digital scales for a more accurate result.
*Turned off- to achieve the right temperature use a cooking thermometer. I have the one from Ikea, and it works great. Leave the metal probe inside and turn the oven at 100°c for 8 seconds until it reaches 23°c, then turn it off. Check every now and then the temperature and adjust it accordingly, however, don’t let the temperature be over 30°c. Alternately leave the light of the oven on.
I don’t have fresh yeast; can I use dry active yeast instead?
Yes, of course. However, I didn’t try it myself but I would use around 5 gr of the dry active yeast. To active the yeast follows the basic guide of the label, however, use the same amount of the water that the recipe says.
I don’t own a stand food mixer, can be done by hand?
Yes, of course. Add the biga and the flour into a big bowl, then add half a dose of the batter into it and mix with a fork. Then add the rest of the batter and mix again until you have a compact dough. Tip the dough onto a worktop and knead the dough until will become smooth. From here follow the recipe above.
How to store Italian Easter bread?
Once cooled off, store it in a paper bag for 3 days. Otherwise, you could freeze it. Cut it into slices and store them individually inside the freezer bags. Store them for up to 2 months.
I don’t have a paper baking mould for panettone, what can I use instead?
You could use a cake tin with Ø18 x h 12 cm, just remember to spread some butter inside the tin cake before laying the dough. Or use any Panettone cake tins for 1 kg of dough.
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