Making Easter Breads, Desserts, and Treats!

Hello, family. We’re so glad you dropped by our kitchen today. It’s a beautiful day here in the neighborhood to coin a phrase. We’re glad that when the family drops by, it’s always a great day. And we’re so thankful that you chose to do that today. We’re getting ready for the Easter holiday, Resurrection Sunday, one of my most favorite times of all the years. It’s a powerful time when you realize exactly what happened when Jesus came out of that tomb. I tell you, it changed humanity forever, gave us all a chance. We have a savior, and his name is Jesus. So today we’re doing the part one. This is not the Easter dinner. This is Easter breads and desserts, candy. We did it too, so that we could have the dinner one week, and we could have the desserts one week. So, you can bake this ahead of time, pop it in the freezer, and when comes time for you to do the Easter dinner, you’ll have your desserts and candy and bread’s already done. The best you could do for your dinner for your guest is to have things done earlier, ahead of time, so that you don’t have so much to rush about on the day of the dinner, because, let’s face it, you can only do so much, and it’s hard to cover all the bases and make sure you have everything. Let me show you. We’re gonna make an Easter challah. You know what an Easter challah is? It’s a bread, and I’m gonna show you this dough, because it’s been raising. I’m gonna show you how to make this. This is one of the easiest doughs. Look at that. Is that a beauty or what? And you make it in the mixer, and you let it rise one time for an hour and this is what you have. And then I’m gonna show you what you do with this. This makes into a braided bread. It is so good, so delicious. I’m telling you, you’re gonna wanna keep some of those in the freezer for all year long. It’s a great, great bread. They sometimes call… You could use that and make it into a paska too, I believe, ’cause the dough is so easy to work with. We’re gonna show you how, plus how to make some Easter eggs, and how to make for your wonderful dessert a coconut tort cake. I love it with coconut and frosting. Ugh, it’s gonna be good. So stay with us. We’re here to take the hint. And when we come back, we’re gonna start with our challah bread and our Easter eggs. We’ll be back in just a minute. Here’s today’s “At Home” hint. When using a double boiler setup for melting chocolate, be sure to keep the water hot, but not boiling, and never let water touch the bottom of the bowl. The chocolate will get too hot and seize up. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to “At Home” Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499. Hard to believe Easter’s here, huh?

I can’t believe it.

Thank God, spring is just around the bend.

Yeah.

No, it’s here already. Thank God, we’re so happy. Okay, Patti’s gonna do some Easter eggs, and she’s gonna make a filling for them. She’s actually gonna make one dough. Called dough or batter?

I guess more of a dough, yeah.

And then you divide into four, and you can make peanut butter, coconut, plain, or-

Peanut butter.

Chocolate.

Oh, do have peanut butter.

I said peanut butter.

All right, sorry.

Okay, so she’s gonna do that. And I’m gonna start. This has to spin a while and mix. So I’m gonna go ahead and show you how to do this, and then she’s gonna show you that. Okay, I have seven cups of flour. This is for a challah bread. Seven cups of flour in this. Put your dough hook on. That’s this guy right here, hardly ever use ’em, but, boy, does he coming handy. All right, and here’s what you’re gonna add, six tablespoons of brown sugar, one package of rapid rise. Make sure it says rapid rise yeast, just one package. If we can figure out where it was opened at. Oh, here we go. Nope, I don’t think it’s open. Okay, we’re gonna get it open now.

[Patti] There you go.

Yeah, just one package of that. Let me get rid of those. Two eggs with salt. Okay, this is one tablespoon of salt. This is cinnamon, two teaspoons of cinnamon. We have a half a cup of canola oil. There we are. 3/4 cup of raisins. Makes it so good. All right, and a tablespoon of salt, ’cause this is seven cups. So that should be good, and it should be salty enough that you can taste it. And then this is two cups of kinda warm water, ’cause this is gonna activate the yeast. I’m telling you, this is absolutely the way you make it. You see this? You put that in, put this down, put the lock on, start very slowly, or you’ll be wearing it before it gets to be a batter. Okay, now the only other two things you need is some Sesame seeds and an egg. Okay, Patti, it’s all yours.

All right. You use a 1/2 a cup of butter and eight ounces of cream cheese, a teaspoon of vanilla. And then you put and two and a half pounds of powdered sugar.

[Arlene] So that would be like a two pound bag and another cup.

Right.

Okay.

And then you just start squishing it and mixing it together

Squishing it.

Squishing it, and that’s what you’re doing is squishing it with your hands, ’cause to do it with a mixer, it’s too dry. And your hands add that heat and moisture to keep it…

Makes sense.

This is a fun and messy job. Kids would probably really like doing this.

Well, anytime they get their hands in it, they like to do it.

Oh, yeah.

And this is, it’s a gushy, messy.

You gonna use this?

[Patti] I’m gonna use that for the chocolate, the one for the chocolate, one for the peanut butter.

[Arlene] Okay, so you’re gonna need these, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

[Patti] We already got powdered sugar shooting everywhere.

Like she said, these are squishy.

This is squishy. And you get both hands in there. Otherwise, you’ll never get it mixed.

[Arlene] Well, you couldn’t do that with a mixer, because I don’t think that would work well, would it?

Hm-mm, no, and just when you think it’s not gonna work, it all comes together.

Comes together, yeah. That’s usually the way those things happen. Now, all I’m doing here is I’m just gonna mix this egg, because we’re gonna use this to paint our breads with when we come back.

What does the egg do? Does it give it color?

It does, gives that shine to it on the outside of the bread. And you wanna stop this every once in a while. And what you wanna do is just get in there and scrape everything down.

[Patti] That’s probably the easiest bread I’ve ever seen.

[Arlene] I’m telling you. I gotta tell you, I’m a little intimidated with yeast doughs.

Yeah, me too.

And I’ve ruined so many times. So I’ve just kind of shied away from it, but I thought I really like this bread and I try to get it all the time, and sometimes you can get it, and sometimes you can’t. I thought I’m gonna challenge myself. I’m gonna make it. I was shocked at how well this came out.

Yeah, it’s nice.

It’s a nice consistency. It’s delicious, ’cause we tried it already.

[Patti] Okay, this is starting.

Oh yeah, it’s coming together.

[Patti] Yeah, it just takes a lot of hand work here.

[Arlene] Sure.

[Patti] Bu it’s coming together nice.

[Arlene] Just keep working it.

[Patti] You keep working it, and you’ll get it all. And it does, it makes a real nice, I guess it’s confection.

[Arlene] Oh, okay. If you say so.

Yeah. Sounds good.

Wait ’til you see the consistency of this bread dough. See this is all sticking to the… Let me show you. It’s all sticking. Now, depending on the day that you make it, this is something you have to decide. It’s a little damp out today, so that’s seven cups of flour. You might need just to add another scoop, because you see how sticky that is. It’s too wet. So I’m just gonna put a little bit. You don’t wanna put too much in, ’cause you don’t want it dry, but you want it enough, so that you can work it with your hands. Well, that stuff’s flying everywhere.

It is flying everywhere. It’s a messy job, but it’s good.

It works, huh?

Mhm. That’s good.

Now, for what I’m doing here with the bread, you wanna preheat your… You’re gonna let this raise for an hour. But when it comes time to bake it, you preheat your oven to 350 degrees. That’s important. You’re gonna let it raise one time. And when it’s like this, this is when you let it raise just like this. You scrape it off.

[Patti] It almost looks like a batter.

Yeah. Scrape it off and you let it sit right in the bowl just like this. Now what I did, I put some plastic wrap on it. You can warm up your oven, and you can put it in there. Turn the oven off, of course. But I’m gonna pass this off, ’cause I need some room here, ’cause I wanna show you what to do, how to make the bread. Okay, Patti, no more flinging your stuff over here, ’cause I’m doing bread over here.

[Patti] Okay, I’ll try.

Okay.

Can’t promise, but I will try.

I know.

[Patti] I got my coconut one done. All you do is add coconut to it.

[Arlene] How much coconut did you add?

A cup of coconut.

A cup, okay.

And this one next to it’s gonna be the plain one, so don’t get them mixed up.

Now what I’m doing with this dough is bringing it out, and I’m gonna divide into half, ’cause this is gonna make two loaves of bread just like so. It’s beautiful.

Well, even smells good.

Oh yeah.

It’s not even baked.

And you need to make sure that you have ample flour. Don’t overdo it, but you need what they call bench flour that’s just sitting around here, and you wanna make sure it doesn’t stick. So you start working with it. And then, let me get my knife here. We’re gonna cut it in half just like that. Okay, so that’s for one loaf. Put that back over here. And then this one we’re gonna cut into thirds, ’cause this is a braided loaf for bread. So you try to make it a log. Try to make it even like so, and that would be about one, two, three. There we go. And what you’re gonna do, a little bit more flour here, and you’re just gonna start shaping this with your two hands like this, ’cause this has to go in a roll. And as you roll, start to pull it out. Pull it out to extend it. But you also wanna make sure that that dough is nice and smooth. And I would roll it out to about, well, depends on how much dough. You want them all to be the same length. There’s the first one. While I’m rolling and she’s rolling, we’re gonna take a break. When we come back, we’ll show you some more of all we’re making for Easter right here on “At Home.” Stay with us. All right, here we are making our Easter desserts, bread, candy, cake, you name it. Patti’s shaping her… Now what size of balls you making there?

Can you make them about an inch.

Inch and a half.

Something like that

You can make them big or little, whatever you want.

Right, and you can either do ’em by hand and try and make little eggs, or if you have a mold, I’d suggest you spray it with like Pam butter spray or something and then put it in. Otherwise it might stick. And then you could toss that in a fridge or the freezer ’til it firms up.

They have to set up for about an hour. Yeah, that’s important. Now she’s got plain. She’s got coconut, peanut butter, and chocolate all outta one mix. That’s pretty cool.

Yeah, it is.

Okay, and for my breads, here are the challah breads. We get two of them out of the recipe. The braiding is easy. Pinch the ends together and just braid it back and forth. Get to the bottom, pinch the ends, and turn them under. That’s all it is. This is sprayed pan. And here I have a full egg, whole egg. And I’m just gonna paint this over this, ’cause it’s gonna make these breads nice and brown, beautiful and brown. Mm mm mm. Tell you the smell of bread baking, here’s nothing. I remember as a kid, my mother… Well, first of all when I’d get ready to go to school in the morning, she had this big pan that she used. It was like a big like a utility pan. And when she had that on the table, we knew we were gonna have bread, ’cause she would start that early in the morning. And I’d say, “Mom, are we gonna have bread when I come home?” Oh yeah, I come home at lunchtime for lunch, and there would be the bread raising in that big pan. She’d make like seven, eight loaves at a time. Ugh, when I’d come home at 3:30, I’d say, “Mom is the bread baked yet?” “Yep, it is.” She’d say, “Get the butter and the jelly.” Oh, music to my ears. Mom, she used to get to cutting that bread. Ugh, she knew how to make it. I’m gonna tell you, it was so good, so good. And you know, I knew she made it, and she would never claim herself to be a great baker. Although I thought she was, ’cause she made everything good. And I was thinking about that and I thought, you know, my mother tackled yeast breads and stuff. Why shouldn’t I try? That’s what prompted me to start to try to do something like a challah bread. And I’m, I’m gonna tell you something. You’re gonna surprise yourself if you try it, ’cause it’s a great dough. It’s a good flavor, good taste. How are we doing over there?

Good.

All righty.

Rolling right along.

Rolling right along. Now Patti, when you go to dip those-

Yeah, you want them nice and cold.

So you dip them in chocolate chips.

Yeah, chocolate chips. And you put a little tiny bit of oil in it, ’cause it melts it down or keeps it smooth enough.

And it also gives it a nice shine.

Yeah it does. And then if you want, you could top it with sprinkles or whatever you wanna put on to decorate ’em, but you gotta do it while the chocolate’s wet.

Okay. Now, after we do the egg, just gonna sprinkle with some Sesame seeds just a little bit. Don’t wanna go crazy. This goes into a 350 degree oven, and they bake for 40 minutes and you’re done. That’s it. You’ll be amazed when that hits the heat. These puppies raise. They do great. All right, you gonna put those in for me?

Sure.

Thank you so much. Okay, while she’s doing that, let me tell you about the cake that we’re doing. Wipe up here a little bit. Clean up. There we go. She’s doing the chocolate. Show them that water.

I’ll get the water. Just a little bit in there.

You keep it low. You don’t touch the bottom

Just enough to keep this hot. And then a lot of times, I turn the water off, because it’s hot enough and you don’t wanna burn it. Then you have a mess. I’ll get ones to dip.

Okay, while she’s doing that, I’ve baked a two layer cake. I made it in my petal pen. It’s kind of like a scallop pan, and I’ve split the layers, ’cause this is gonna be a tort. That means multiple layers. I have some brown sugar, package of cream cheese, little bit of vanilla in here. And you bake this according to the package directions. And then I’m just mixing this, so it’s really nice and creamy, because what you’re gonna do now is just fold into this a large Cool Whip. That brown sugar in there is really gonna give it some flavor. So, let me make sure I get the right one. One day I did that and I pressed this. Stuff was flying everywhere. Not a good idea. There we go. Now, you don’t want to beat this in. We’ve had experience with beating Cool Whip and it goes flat. It goes into an absolute disaster. So you don’t wanna do that. Patti, do we have a…

What do you need?

I need a spatula.

Sure.

Oh, here I have one. I have one, thanks.

Here’s an extra one.

Okay. And so you’re gonna just take this and fold. You know what fold is? Not stirring.

Gentle

Gently, gently, gently doing it. That’s pretty cool. Watch how Patti’s coloring or frosting those, covering them with chocolate, rather

Mhm, dip them. And then you put a little bit of sprinkles while the chocolate’s wet.

Now you wanna do sprinkles, because you wanna make sure people know what’s in there. So you do different colored sprinkles for the different kinds of eggs that you’re making. Okay, and here I’m just… Here we go. Fold down and up. That’s the process, down and up until it’s totally incorporated. If I was to take this thing and just beat it, beat it, it would go flat. Not what we’re looking for. Okay, you wanna make sure that your cream cheese is soft, so that it blends well just like that. Then what we’re gonna do here is we’re gonna add coconut, yum, yum, yum, to this, ’cause we’re gonna frost here, put another layer. We’re gonna do four, and then frost the whole thing with this and decorate with jelly beans. You’re gonna love it. It’s gonna be awesome. We’re gonna take a break while Patti’s dipping and I’m spreading. We’ll be back in just a minute to show you everything we made today. Now don’t forget, you can get all the recipes from today and really from the whole month just by subscribing or sending a self-addressed stamped envelope with a couple of dollars that would help us with our printing, and we will send you our Enjoy newsletter. I had a great comment just recently. A lady said, “Boy do I love your Enjoy. “I love the food looks so alive “like you could eat it right off the paper,” ’cause we’re doing it in color now. Mary Anne’s doing a great job of lining that up for us. And you’re gonna see a really big improvement. You’re gonna wanna get them and keep them, because you can refer to them year after year after year, month after month. So you want to be sure to do that. And the address is there on the screen, and you can go to our website also and subscribe there for an easy newsletter. So we try to make it very easy for you. Well, I hope you can take a little trip around the counter with us today. First of all, here’s our challah bread. Did I tell you this was beautiful? Look at that bread. This is the kind of slices you get. Look, that’s got the beautiful raisins. Look at the texture of that bread. It’s just beautiful. It’s smooth, no big holes in it, and it’s all done with your mixer. You don’t get in there at all. You don’t have to. Makes two loaves just like this. They bake in 40 minutes. It’s done. Wrap them up, put them in the freezer. You’ll bring them out on Easter. Okay, that’s wonderful. Next, we have a marathon of chocolate covered Easter eggs. I’m telling you, just look, one, two, three, four, five, and that’s not even half of them. It makes a lot, and it makes all different varieties. We have a lot of peanut butter. We have coconut. We have cocoa, which is a chocolate, and we have a plain vanilla center. And look how nice they are. Patti outdid herself on all these. She just kept dipping, dipping, dipping, dipping. Instead of Willy Wonka, we call her Patti Zonka, ’cause she was going to town on that chocolate. And I’ll tell you, there’s a lot. You can keep these. These we’ll keep refrigerated for one week between now and Easter. Give them as a gift. You need a little hostess gift, you have it. You give them to your grandkids. Give ’em to the kids. You save a lot of money making them rather than buying individually. And then here in the center, this is our coconut tort. Oh my, it’s the beauty, isn’t it? Four layers and just as delicate as you can see. I mean, it’s a beautiful centerpiece, and I know you’re gonna like it. Be sure to join us next time, because it’s gonna be Easter, and it wouldn’t be the same without you. We’ll see you then.

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