Vegan Pane di Pasqua - Easter Bread Recipe

My family’s traditional pane di Pasqua, Pinca or Easter bread, made entirely vegan, eggless, and dairy free! Topped with a sugar glaze, roasted almonds, caramel sugar, coconut flakes and dried raspberries, this Easter bread is full of lemon and orange zest and rum soaked raisins with a sweet pillowy soft bread. The perfect bread centerpiece for your plant based Easter celebration!

Seeing as I follow a plant-based diet, I wanted to make my own version of the bread that I love so much. Instead of using yolks, we’re using vegan butter and turmeric for the colour.

Ingredients for the dough:

400 g regular white flour

100 g spelt flour (or you can use regular instead)

1 sachet of dry yeast

1/2 tsp turmeric (for colour)

1 pinch of salt

100 vegan butter

zest of 1 lemon

zest of 1 orange

1 dl rum

6 tbsp sugar (I mixed 3 bourbon vanilla sugar sachets + 3 tbsp brown cane sugar)

2 dl roasted almond milk (soy or oat milk can also be used)

2-3 handfuls of raisins

Ingredients for the shiny coating:

1 tbsp sugar

approximately 0,2 dl vegan milk

Ingredients for the glaze:

250 g powdered sugar

approximately 0,3 dl vegan milk (add bit by bit to the sugar until you get the right consistency)

Toppings:

dried coconut flakes

dried raspberries

roasted almond leaves

granulated sugar in caramel - vanilla flavour

Preparation

1. Soak the raisins in rum, they need to be covered, you can add a bit of water if you don't want a lot of rum flavour). Leave it for 2-3 hours.

2. Melt the vegan butter (on low heat, needs to be lukewarm, not hot).

3. In another bowl, dissolve the sugar in the lukewarm milk. Add the lemon and orange zest.

4. In the third bowl add the dried yeast, salt and turmeric to the flour. Stir a little to distribute the yeast evenly throughout the flour.

5. Add the milk to the flour and knead briefly.

6. Add the melted vegan butter and continue kneading.

7. The dough should not stick to the bowl, if it does stick to the bowl and your fingers, add a bit of flour.

8. Cover the dough with a cloth and place it in a warm place for 1 hour to rise.

9. Divide the dough into two parts.

10. Drain the raisins and add equally to each dough.

11. Knead the dough until the raisins are evenly distributed throughout the dough.

12. The dough should not stick to the bowl, if it does stick to the bowl and your fingers, add a bit of flour.

13. Shape into two balls, place it on a, baking paper covered, oven tray, cover with a cloth and leave the dough to rise for another 30 minutes in a warm place.

14. Cut the dough with a knife or scissors, into three or four cuts.

15. Brush the dough with plant-based milk (soy, oat or almond) in which we have dissolved a tablespoon of sugar.

16. Bake at 180 degrees for 30 minutes. (You can check by inserting a toothpick into the center of the dough. If the toothpick comes out clean, your dough is likely fully baked.)

17. When we take the Easter breads out of the oven, while they are still hot, we coat them once again with a combination of milk and sugar for shine.

18. Let it cool down while you cover it with the cloth to retain moisture.

19. Mix powdered sugar with a bit of milk until you get pourable consistency that smoothly coats the Easter bread without excessive dripping.

20. Top it with dried coconut flakes, dried raspberries, roasted almond leaves, caramel - vanilla granulated sugar or other toppings.

    
    

That's it! Enjoy your delicious vegan Easter Bread and Happy Easter!

Kisses!

PetraG