I believe some foods are more important than others, and some are fundamental. The Romagna Easter Loaf is one of those essentials for me.
The Easter Loaf is a delicious sweet bread, one of those things that taste good, like childhood, grandmothers, festive days. It cannot be missed, come what may, on Easter morning.
For Easter, we – in our family – unlike Christmas, don’t have recurring dishes for lunch: sometimes we have lasagna, sometimes we repeat the cappelletti in broth just like at Christmas, other times mom makes ravioli, we always stick to tradition but with variations.
What characterizes Easter for us is breakfast.
The Easter breakfast must, from time immemorial, be based on loaf, boiled (blessed) eggs, and tart, preferably with apricot jam, or even better with biuda (here’s my grandmother’s pink version), to which the dove cake was added later.
Breakfast should be eaten at a well-set table, a bite of loaf and a bite of boiled egg. And until a few years ago, not that many, in the meantime we recited the Creed, according to a custom that my father never fails to remind us of every year. Being very attached to traditions, he values this practice a lot. I wonder how many still remember it, I think few, maybe none.
My very first Easter Loaf made with my own hands was last year. For that first and difficult Easter in lockdown, with the challenge of going grocery shopping (what a tough time!), we were risking an Easter without the loaf, and that was unacceptable.
Deciding to make it at home was an almost epic endeavor for me, because, after the era of Aunt Marcella ended, who used to supply us with homemade baked goods (do you remember the piada dei morti?) (what a pity not asking her for her recipes in time!), we hadn’t felt the need to make it at home, since our loaf had always come from the bakery-where-they-knew-how-to-make-it-well-and-with-the-flavor-of-old-times. And we were fine with that.
I didn’t have a trusted recipe and knew who to ask. So, thanks to the lockdown forcing us to rely on the web for everything, I searched the zero-mile internet as much as possible and found this recipe, which I deemed valid and then personalized a bit.
The result I achieved was perfect: taste, aroma, texture, everything turned out identical to the Romagna Easter Loaf that my taste buds recognize as typical of my Rimini Romagna.
I am happy with this discovery, also because in the end it’s not a complicated recipe at all, quite the opposite.
I made it in two variants: with lard as tradition demands, and also with butter instead of lard. The real reason for the butter test was that I realized I ran out of lard, and it was midnight, but the result was more than valid and worthy of publication.
It is fair to propose a vegetarian version too, because, for us Romagnoli, having lard in the fridge is more than normal (for piada!), perhaps not everyone has the habit, or tradition, of using lard as we do, putting it even in ciambella, using it for frying, it belongs to us.
I also let you know that I baked it in two different shapes: round loaf, more typically Romagnola, and also in a taller and narrower shape, a form influenced by the cultural blend with Marche’s cheese crescia, typically tall, baked in a pot with high edges.
Well, I’m ready! Let’s start kneading! 🤩
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Other Easter recipes of mine 👇
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Inexpensive
- Rest time: 19 Hours
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 10 slices
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Regional Italian
- Region: Emilia-Romagna
- Seasonality: Easter
Ingredients for a Romagna Easter Loaf
- 2.5 oz liquid sourdough (licoli)
- 1.66 cups all-purpose flour
- 0.42 cups water
- the leavened pre-dough
- 0.83 cups all-purpose flour
- 0.83 cups Manitoba flour
- 0.5 cups sugar
- 3 tbsp lard (or butter)
- 1 egg (large)
- 1.7 tbsp anise liqueur (I used Sambuca)
- 0.33 cups raisins
- 6 walnuts
- to taste milk (for brushing)
Tools
- Stand Mixer Russel Hobbs
- Mold with high edges
- Cooling Rack for cooling pastries
Preparation
Knead 1.66 cups of flour with 0.42 cups of water and 2.5 oz of licoli (by hand or with a stand mixer).
Let it rise for 7-8 hours in a bowl, or directly in the stand mixer’s bowl, covered with plastic wrap.
At least half an hour before kneading, soak the raisins in water to plump them up, and soften the lard (or butter) by leaving it at room temperature.
Note: when I used lard, I softened it with a tablespoon of warm milk, while when I used butter, I used it softened but not warm, just kept out of the fridge for a while.
When the pre-dough is ready (doubled), mix it with all the loaf ingredients.
I used the stand mixer but it can also be done on the work surface if you want to knead by hand. The mixture is soft and a bit sticky but can be managed well even by hand.
Knead until you obtain a uniform and well-mixed dough, then let it rest for about an hour, after which add the raisins and chopped walnuts.
Note: on another occasion I added the walnuts and raisins immediately and noticed no particular differences in the final outcome.
Knead again to mix well (it will still be a soft dough).
Let the dough rise in the bowl covered with plastic wrap until it doubles in size (it took 9 hours for the dough with lard and 8 hours for the dough with butter). Prefer a warm and sheltered place, for example, inside an off oven with the light on.
When the dough has doubled, proceed to the final rising. As I mentioned in the introduction, here are the two shaping possibilities:
– shape the dough into a bread loaf, letting it rise in a basket (a test I still need to do) or ‘free’ as I did this time,
– or let it rise in a mold with high edges.
In the first case, if you want to achieve a round loaf:
Shape the dough into a ball (by closing it well at the bottom) and place it on a baking tray (I used a tart tray) covered with parchment paper. Moisten the surface by brushing it with milk.
Place the dough in an off oven with the light on (or cover it with an overturned bowl) and let it rise until doubled (about 3 hours, in this specific case my dough took 2 and a half hours).
In the second case, if you want to bake in a mold for a taller shape:
Place the dough (shaped into a ball) at the bottom of a mold with high edges – I used a glass soufflé mold which I covered at the bottom with a piece of parchment paper – and let it rise until doubled (in this case it took 3 hours and a quarter).
If you cannot maintain a constant rising temperature (which for sourdough should always be around 82°F), and relying on room temperature, it is natural that the rising time may vary.
Before baking, brush the surface with milk.
Bake in the oven at 356°F.
After the first 10 minutes of baking, lower the temperature to 320°F. Bake for 30-35 minutes, paying attention to the surface browning. If necessary, you can turn off the top element for part of the baking time.
The browning should be there; the color should be brown. In any case, I recommend checking in the last minutes of baking, as a few minutes of distraction can lead to excessive surface ‘tanning’.
Here’s the interior of my two versions:
Version with lard, baked in the glass mold, and photographed on our Easter breakfast table from last year (our unforgettable lockdown Easter):
And here is the butter version (very similar to the lard one in taste, texture, and appearance). This is the loaf we ate last Sunday, Palm Sunday:
And now I have to decide which one to make again for Easter day!
Ahhhh, but nooo! What problem is there, I have to make two!! 😀
Happy Easter to everyone and Happy Easter breakfast!
Send me pictures of your Romagna Easter Loaf!
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FAQ (Questions and Answers)
What are the origins of the Romagna Easter Loaf?
It is said that the Romagna Loaf originated in Sarsina, an ancient town on the hills of Cesena. In reality, the loaf is present throughout Romagna, albeit with slight differences (walnuts yes, walnuts no, anise aroma yes, anise aroma no) due to local traditions of each region, province, city, or individual families. The loaf is indeed a sweet bread of poor, peasant origin, made with simple ingredients, sometimes simply “with what was there” (quote, words of my dad). Traditionally, the loaf was (and is) prepared to be brought to the table on Easter morning along with the blessed boiled egg. In some areas of Romagna, it is also served with salami and red wine, a tradition that does not exist here in my area, south of Rimini; our Easter breakfast has always been made with the loaf eaten together with the boiled egg (a bite of the egg and one of the loaf) and, in addition, a slice of crostata with biuda (like this tart from grandma Francesca).
