Braided Easter bun

A typical Easter tradition in Germany is the braided Easter bun. Many families have a Easter brunch on Easter Sunday and this is something that is a must:

Photo: ichkoche.at

This is what you need:

400 g flour
160 ml lukewarm milk
40 g fresh yeast
60 g butter
2 eggs (only the egg yolks)
60 g sugar
1 sachet of vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 table spoon citron zest

1 egg
decorating sugar


Melt the butter and add the milk. Pour mixture into mixing bowl and allow to cool until “finger-warm” (still quite warm, but just cool enough to touch). Stir in yeast and let sit for 10 minutes. Add sugar, vanilla sugar, salt and citron zest and raisins if you like raisins.

Mix the flour into liquid and then the egg. Add enough flour to form a soft dough (just until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Don't add too much flour as the dough gets dry). Put the dough to a large bowl and cover it with a clean towel and allow to rise until doubled, approx. 30 minutes.

Cover the dough and let rise for 45 minutes. Divide the dough in 3 equal pieces and roll into ropes. Loosely braid the ropes and put on a greased baking tray. Let rise for another 30 minutes until braid is plump and doubled in size. Brush with beaten egg and add the decorating sugar, bake for about 30 minutes at 190C/347F