Tsoureki (My Greek Dish Easter bread)

Greek enriched Easter braid

Tsoureki is a Greek enriched yeast bread associated with Easter and also made outside the holiday. The atlas describes it within Greek and connected regional traditions. This page documents one contemporary two-loaf recipe by Eli K. Giannopoulos, not a single formula used throughout Greece or neighboring regions. It uses wheat flour, milk, eggs and butter, with mastic, mahleb and orange zest for flavour.

Use the source formula as written: 870 g strong white bread flour, 24 g dry yeast, 110 g lukewarm water, 150 g milk, 135 g butter, 230 g sugar, four medium eggs (about 200 g without shells), 3 g ground mastic, 10 g ground mahleb and the zest of one orange. For the glaze, it lists one egg and one tablespoon of water, with almond slivers as an amount-unspecified garnish. The optional syrup is 150 g each of sugar and water. It is a large, soft dough; the author cautions against adding flour unless the dough remains very sticky after kneading.

Activate the yeast in lukewarm water with a pinch of sugar for about 6–7 minutes, until it bubbles. Grind the mastic and mahleb with a pinch of sugar. The recipe does not quantify either pinch. Melt the butter with the dough sugar and milk over very low heat, then cool the mixture to lukewarm before mixing in the eggs and yeast. This helps avoid exposing the yeast to hot liquid. Combine the liquids with the flour, spices and orange zest, then knead with a dough hook for about 15 minutes until the dough clears the bowl sides while remaining soft and slightly sticky.

Cover the dough and leave it in a warm place until doubled, about 3–4 hours. If the room is cold, the author suggests warming an oven to 30 °C, switching it off and placing the covered dough inside. The shaping steps do not use a measured proofing temperature: use the source's volume cues. Gently deflate the dough, divide it into six equal pieces and stretch each piece into a rope by holding and gently shaking the edges. Braid three ropes per loaf without pulling the braid tight. Set both braids on a parchment-lined tray and let them rise for about one hour, until puffy and nearly doubled.

The source lists the fan-oven setting as 150 °C / 310 °F. Those numbers differ by about 4.4 °C. A reader later reported that 350 °F made the bread dry, and the author answered that 310 °F was intended. This version therefore uses 310 °F, which converts to 154.4 °C, and retains the source's 30–40-minute bake time and browned, fluffy visual cue. If the loaves brown too quickly, the source advises covering them with parchment.

The almond garnish is optional and amount unspecified. The syrup is also optional: the author says syrup is not part of the traditional recipe description. If used, boil 150 g sugar with 150 g water just until the sugar dissolves, remove the pan from the heat and ladle the syrup over the hot loaves. Cool the breads before wrapping. The publisher's suggested room-temperature and freezer periods are not validated storage limits, so none is presented as a safety guarantee.

Raw flour and eggs require ordinary kitchen hygiene. Do not taste the uncooked dough, keep it away from ready-to-eat food and clean hands and utensils after handling. The bread is served after baking; the source does not specify a validated internal temperature endpoint. The historical period remains undated because the inspected recipe documents a modern method and Easter association, not a first attestation.