Brioche Easter Bunnies

Easter is just around the corner, so it's time to bake some Easter treats. Baking some kind of sweet yeast bread for Easter brunch is a very common tradition in Germany. Usually it comes in the form of a braid or wreath. It can be plain and enjoyed with butter and jam or filled with nuts or dried fruits.

I wanted to make some different shape this year so I made some Easter Bunnies. But you can use the same dough for making a braid or wreath as well. The dough is great to work with and tastes really good.

If you are like me you probably don't want to get up really early on Easter morning to prepare your baked goods. You don't have to. You can prepare the dough the night before and let it rest in the fridge overnight. Then you just have to shape and bake the bunnies in the morning. I made a note in the recipe, at what point you can interrupt the process.

My little bunnies were so well liked that I am gonna make at least two more batches until Easter. I hope you will like them too.

White Loaves [TWD]

If you are a regular reader of food blogs, you probably heard of the baking group "Tuesdays with Dorie". For several years this group baked their way to Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours. They finally finished their endeavor and now there is time for a new project. They chose another book from Dorie, "Baking with Julia". It's a classic, which is on my bookshelf for some time now. It has wonderful recipes collected by Julia Child from all kinds of famous American bakers. I always use her recipe for puff pastry, it's wonderful.

In my infinite wisdom I jumped on the chance and joined the group. We are gonna bake two recipes of the book each month. I hope I can participate at most of them, since it is a really interesting book, with a lot of general recipes, which are nice to learn.

We started of with baking white loaves. It is a nice bread, and goes well for breakfast or sandwiches. It was easy to make and a good bicep training, since my standmixer couldn't handle it. I made the bread as directed, just substituted the dry yeast for fresh yeast. I usually try to use fresh yeast, since I like the process and taste better. If you want to use it you can substitute 1 teaspoon of dry yeast with 10 g of fresh yeast. I know that it is quite difficult to get in North America, but I had always luck when I asked at a local bakery.

We are not gonna post each recipe we are making, but you can find it on each weeks hosting blog or go get the book "Baking with Julia", it's worth it. This week is hosted by Laurie of Slush and Jules of Someone’s in the Kitchen. Please also check out the results of my fellow bakers.

Fig and Walnut Loaf

I really like to bake with fresh yeast. I think it's not only easier to work with than dried yeast, but I also like the taste of the baked goods better. In Germany every supermarket carries little cubes of fresh yeast, enough for one recipe. Unfortunately, as I have learned, it is really difficult to find fresh yeast in North America. 

One trick I have figured out is to ask your neighborhood bakery. If you ask nicely and don't ask too often they usually would sell it to you. You can also try the bakery department at your local gourmet supermarket. The problem is that you will usually get a whole pound, because that is how the fresh yeast is packaged here. That means you have to do a lot of baking for the next two weeks, because the yeast is perishable and also it cannot be frozen. But the good news is that a lot of yeast doughs can be frozen, so you can bake them later.

Just before I bought my block of fresh yeast I borrowed the wonderful book "Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins and More" by Carole Walter from the library. I already marked several recipes I wanted to try and couldn't wait to start. I can really recommend this book. All the recipes I made turned out wonderful, and I immediately bought a copy of the book for myself. In the first week I made Sticky Buns, Cherry Crumble Cake, Brioche and Fig and Walnut Loaf, which is pictured here. I also made some doughs to freeze for later use. The next thing I would like to try is croissants. Besides the yeast breads and cakes there are also a lot of nice recipes for quick breads, muffins, pound cakes, scones and more.