Mennonite Easter Bread My Grandma’s Way
Want to take a trip down memory lane with me?
Let’s make Mennonite Easter Bread
the way my Grandma did.
Where paska meets hot cross buns.
Mennonite Easter Bread My Grandma’s Way
This recipe comes with a caveat.
If your Mennonite roots grew first in Eastern Europe, this is not the recipe for you. Look for a pure Paska recipe then.
However, if the roots got a little tangled along the way, like below our family tree,
then your Paska will be married to Hot Cross Buns.
See, the thing is, we don’t really know all of our family tree.
(You might be related to me, for all I know!)
Because my Mennonite forefather married their family’s Anglo-Saxon maid way back in the 1800s.
So we’ve been a little mixed up ever since. :/
Okay, here’s the recipe so you can see for yourself:
Mennonite Easter Bread
Ingredients
Dough
- 3/4 cup milk
- 3 tsp. yeast
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 5 tbsp. butter, soft
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg and allspice
- 3 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup raisins
Orange Glaze
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 - 2 tsp. orange juice
Frosting for Crosses
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp. soft butter
- 1 - 2 tsp. milk
Instructions
Dough
- Warm milk to 110° and mix in the yeast and 1 tsp. sugar. Place in stand mixer with dough hook, cover and let sit for 5 minutes.
- Soak raisins in warm water for 10 minutes, drain.
- Add the brown sugar, butter, vanilla extract, eggs, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and 1 cup flour. Beat for 30 seconds, scraping sides to mix well.
- Add drained raisins and the rest of the flour. Beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until the dough separates easily from the bowl. Then knead another 2 minutes.
- Lightly grease a large dough bowl and turn the dough into the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours, or until double in size.
- Grease a baking pan. Punch down the dough and divide into 15 portions. Squeeze between your thumb and forefinger to smooth the tops of each piece and place in pan.
- Allow to rise till puffy, about an hour. Preheat oven to 350°.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown.
Icing
- Mix the orange juice and powdered sugar till smooth and runny.
- Brush over warm rolls.
Frosting for Crosses
- Beat frosting ingredients together until smooth, and thick enough to hold its shape. Place into a frosting bag with a round tip, or in a plastic zip bag with a corner cut. Squeeze a cross onto each bun after they are completely cooled.
- Frosting option: Frost the whole top of the buns and add sprinkles, like the Mennonite Paska bread.
Does your family have special recipes for Easter?
Today, Kim and I talked about food we’ve eaten at our family’s Easter dinners.
She couldn’t really remember any symbolic foods from our family’s meals.
The Easter buns in the above recipe are something I remember having as a child. Kim never has had them.
I know that traditions and repeating recipes for holidays is a way to bond families. There’s a sense of belonging that comes from having family traditions.
I remember Christmas dinners, with the typical Mennonite dishes like holubshi and kielki and the same cookie recipes every year.
But we didn’t have traditional Easter food, except for these spicy buns my Grandma made. My mother never made them.
I often wondered why this was. Then I realized my mother didn’t really want to remember the traditions of her childhood. She didn’t have a happy childhood, as the Mennonite in her father was a name only. It did not signal the spirituality of his heart.
So when my mother gave her heart to God and became a Christian, she did not place much value on traditions. Yes, our Church still has Mennonite in its name. But food traditions hold little importance compared to the wonders of God’s love in giving His only son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins.
And at Easter, those are the things we want to commemorate most of all.
The symbolic recipes are merely an accompaniment to a much bigger picture.
