How to Bake Portuguese Sweet Bread

Make sweet bread at home.

Traditionally served on Easter Sunday, Portuguese sweet bread is a simple enough recipe for a home cook to prepare on a regular basis. The sweet bread, flavored with butter and milk, makes an ideal breakfast accompaniment when spread with fruit preserves or jam. Recipes for sweet bread available on the east coast of the United States typically call for the additional of lemon zest or extract and nutmeg. Portuguese sweet bread made on the west coast or in Hawaii often uses potato starch instead of lemon.

Things You'll Need

• 1/2 cup whole milk
• Small saucepan
• Wooden spoon
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick or 2 oz)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon zest
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 packet active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• Small mixing bowl
• 2 eggs
• Large mixing bowl
• 3 cups (15 oz) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Additional flour for kneading
• Additional bowl
• Oil for coating bowl
• Plastic wrap
• 9 inch round cake pan or 9 inch bread loaf pan
• Wire cooling rack

Instructions

1. Heat milk in a small saucepan until it just begins to boil. Small bubbles will form on the sides of the pan. Remove from the heat.

2. Add the sugar, butter and lemon zest to the heated milk. Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved and the butter melted. Add the nutmeg to the milk mixture. Set aside and let cool.

3. Pour the yeast, teaspoon of sugar and water into a small mixing bowl. Stir to wet the yeast. Let the mixture sit for about five minutes, until it is bubbly.

4. Break the eggs into the large mixing bowl, then add the cooled milk mixture, then the yeast mixture. Stir to incorporate the ingredients.

5. Add the flour and salt to the egg/milk/yeast mixture. Mix together until a dough forms. It will be slightly sticky.

6. Coat a work surface with a light layer of flour and place the dough on the surface. Knead for about five minutes, until the dough is elastic and less sticky.

7. Coat the additional bowl with a light layer of oil, then set the dough in the bowl. Cover with the plastic wrap and let it rise at room temperature for about two hours, or until doubled.

8. Take the risen dough out of the bowl and shape it. If you're baking in a cake pan, shape the dough into a round. If you are baking in a bread loaf pan, shape it into a rectangle, then roll the rectangle into a log shape. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for another hour.

9. Heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit while the dough rises. Slide the pan into the oven once risen and bake for 35 minutes, or until the bread is dark brown.

10. Cool the bread on a wire rack.

References

• The Kitchn; Make This! Portuguese Sweet Bread; Emma Christensen; 2010
• King Arthur Flour; Portuguese Sweet Bread; 1992
• Food Network: Portuguese Sweet Bread; Bobby Flay
• Yankee Magazine: Portuguese Sweet Bread