Easter Paska: My First Heirloom Recipe

The inaugural post. Always a lot of pressure.

I've been brainstorming (more like brain-sunshowering) about the posts I dream for this blog. I wanted to be able to create a blog that would thoughtfully present my point of view on many subjects. It started with the desire to talk about food. I mean, I talk about food a lot as it is, but I wanted a bigger audience. A bigger audience meant more sharing and more great stories and recipes and advice. But then I thought about the other things around my home that I like talking about too. General domesticity and homemaking, my deep love of ironing, but poor time management which means I never make time to iron; all the things that make me happy in my home-life.

Wheat and sky was born on a typical Friday afternoon. After a couple weeks of dreaming, I finally sat down to figure out a name that would express the general feeling I wanted. Not exclusively food related either. Believe me, I had some awesome and terrible names lined up.

For this inaugural post I'd like to take a trip back in time to the day I decided that learning recipes used by my mother and my grandmothers was important and I wanted to be able to master them and pass them on one day.

My first real journey began at Easter time a few years ago. My mother was ill and my family was out of sorts you could say. I needed a catalyst to energize me for spring. I was down and needed lifting. I turned to bread. Good, soft, sweet and heavenly bread.

Paska is Ukrainian Easter bread. It is a simple quick bread full of lots of good things like eggs and melted butter. Mmmm! The dough is soft and supple and traditionally Paska is decorated and included in the Easter basket to be blessed at church.

The result of this recipe is a sweet and soft bread with a nice fine crust. Best if sliced thin like sandwich bread and eaten with a healthy spread of butter or a slice of cold ham and beet and horseradish relish.

When I made this the first time, my mom was in the hospital. I made her her very own 'personal sized' paska in a tomato can. We sat and nibbled on bread and butter while chatting. Not having a real easter dinner that year was difficult. I made it through by baking bread, and teaching myself how to make pyrohy and nalysnyky (crepes filled with cottage cheese and dill). I sought approval from my mom and grandma and at first that was what got me through it - to know that I could teach myself how to make these things on my own... because I didn't know if they would ever be able to teach me. I was feeling like I had missed my chance for a hands on lesson. It was a sad time and I used Ukrainian food as a crutch.

Thankfully, today I don't lean on this food for the same emotional support as I once did. My mom is well and my grandma as sarcastic as ever. I now make Paska at easter to share with the family and carry on the tradition. It is a happy time for spring and bread and all the wonderful symbolism that Easter brings.

If you have never made bread before, I urge you to try this recipe. It seems daunting (10 cups of flour?!?) but it is very easy to work with. Even if you divided it into loaf pans and made sandwich bread, it would be absolutely divine.

Easter Paska

from Ukrainian Daughter's Cookbook

1/2 cup warm water

1 1/2 Tbsp yeast

1 tsp sugar

Combine until yeast is dissolved, 10 minutes.

6 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup oil

1 tsp salt

3 cups lukewarm water

10 - 11 cups flour (all purpose is fine)

Combine the softened yeast with beaten eggs, add sugar, butter, oil, salt, and water. Mix in the flour and knead until smooth and elastic. The dough should be just a little stiffer than for bread (for bread novices, knead the dough until it is smooth and no longer needs flour to stop it from sticking to your hands). Cover, let rise in a warm place until double in bulk (about an hour).

Punch down and let rise again for another hour.

Prep pans for baking by buttering or spray with oil. The best kind of pan for this bread is a 9" cake pan or a springform pan. But you can also bake these in washed out coffee cans or for smaller breads, use 28 oz tomato cans.

Remove the dough from the bowl and lightly knead a few times. Cut off a piece big enough to make circle 1" thick that will cover the bottom of your pan.

Take 2 equal-sized pieces of dough, roll each to 36" lengths. Place side by side and starting from centre, entwine each about the other, do the other half in the same manner (you just made a dough rope), place the entwined length of the base, in a circle along the edge of the the base.

Decorate the top of the bread with a cross with curled ends, or create a braid similar to the rope and add that around the perimeter of the bread.

Let rise to almost double in bulk. This won't take as long as the first two times so keep an eye on it! Brush lightly with a beaten egg.

Bake in 325 F for 15 minutes then turn the oven up to 350F and bake for 45 minutes more.

This recipe makes 3 or 4 paska. I got 2 large 9" paska and 1 smaller 6" out of this recipe, but one of my loaves was ENORMOUS and ballooned out over the edges of the pan. Hilarious!

Let the loaves cool completely before storing them. I recommend wrapping them in plastic wrap and again in tin foil if you are freezing them. They last about a month in the freezer.

Make French Toast with this bread once it's gone a little stale. Mmmmmm so good!