Step by Step Tutorial to Make Paska; The Best Ukrainian Easter Bread Recipe

Learn how to make Ukrainian Paska, also known as Easter Bread, with this calming step-by-step tutorial. Learn the simplest, most full-proof way of shaping and baking a beautiful loaf of traditional Paska in your kitchen. #paska #ukraine #baking #bread #easter #tutorial

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Timestamps:
00:00 Step by Step Tutorial to Make Paska; The Best Ukrainian Easter Bread
00:05 Making Paska Dough
01:20 Kneading Shaggy Dough
01:49 How to Knead Dough Properly
02:34 Proofing Dough for Rising
03:00 Dividing the Dough for Second Proofing
4:00 Shaping Paska Decorations
04:40 Braiding Dough for Bread Decoration
05:19 Egg Wash for Dough
05:54 Additional Decoration Ideas for Paska
07:06 Baked Paska

In Ukraine bread is the symbol of life.

It represents peace and friendship. Forgiveness and enduring memory. Since ancient times bread has been highly honored as a gift from above.

For generations, Paska has been the bread made in kitchens throughout the regions of Ukraine on Good Friday. The timing of Easter, the Christian holiday, more or less coincides with the pre-Christian ancient festival of spring called Velykden. For this reason, the celebration of Easter incorporates many ancient rituals, including the making of Paska.

A Ukrainian ethnographer, Stepan Kylymnyk, in his book Calendar Year in Ukrainian Folklore (vol. 2, 1959), described an old custom of baking three loaves. The purpose of the first was for the sun and the sky. They believed that the sun would give health and long life to their family members. The second loaf for the deceased and a third for the living people.

Loaves are often decorated, their symbolism belonging to spring themes. Nature, resurrection, and rebirth. Crosses are the most prevalent adornment for Paska, its significance in Christianity is obvious. In pre-Christian times, when people based their beliefs on nature and its phenomena, the cross symbolized the four seasons or four cardinal directions.

The bread itself is rich in butter and eggs. Round and tall, and baked in a variety of round baking pans, often in coffee cans they have saved throughout the year. While this recipe is simple, a variety of aromatics can be used…my favorite being orange zest. Also consider adding ginger, saffron, vanilla, or rum. Its texture resembles, for me, a mix between cake and bread.

While the dough rises, it is important for Ukrainians that they quiet their homes.
Right now, the United Nations estimates that over 9 million Ukrainians have been forced from their homeland because of war.

When I watch the footage emerging from these border crossings, my gaze stays longer on the images of grandmothers. Many in wheelchairs, pushed mile after mile, bundled under blankets often covered in a blanket of snow. These women should instead be covered in a dusting of flour, surrounded by family, carrying on the tradition of Paska baking this Easter season.

I believe so strongly in the power of food and its ability to connect cultures and unite us as people. The way taste and smell can make us both wistful for the past and hopeful for the future. This Spring, I’ll be foregoing my own traditions for the baking of Paska. I will quietly knead, shape, rise, and bake what so many generations of Ukrainian women have passed down through the generations. Will you join me in keeping this tradition alive on their behalf this year?

This video tutorial and printable recipe are free, but my hope is that you’ll be moved to action to click the button above and donate to World Central Kitchen, a non-profit committed to providing warm meals in 12 Ukrainian cities and across the border into Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia.

To learn how to make an apple pie, take a few moments to watch my other tutorial here:

[Canadian]

My parents immigrated from Ukraine to Canada in 1951. My mother’s baked goods were amazing and her paska’s were out of this world. I know that she always put more than 2 eggs in her Paska recipe. Unfortunately, I do not have my mother’s recipe, as she always made them every year by heart and she always made many paska’s for each member of our family. TFS!

[alexbowman]

Thank you. This is by far the best paska video on YouTube.

[denisealee]

This was very good. Thank you for sharing!

[yamurkahtan]

Where is your series of cooking, baking? I love your videos. This is this is my feelings when I bake

[menya]

I tased it in Russia it was good! I will try to bake it myself.. thank you for the tutorial!<3

[rosemariemiskiw]

Beautiful video thank you . Please advise if I am able to make & freeze these to use at a later date ? Thank you .

[Pinacup]

I've made this twice now. It's a lovely recipe that I will use as my staple from now on! My only question is: the recipe calls for 5 cups of flour but both times I've made this my dough was very wet and sticky making me have to add more flour. Is the dough suppose to be wet and sticky? Should I just push though and try to make it come together without the added flour? or is it possible I need to add more flour to my recipe from now on? I have to add 1/2 cup to 1 cup of extra flour

[lacesq]

yep, beautiful video/music, but the bread is just so-so. I went for this because the author says she tried other recipes and settled on this one. Should have noted that most of the comments simply observe that the video is great (e.g. "best paska video on YouTube") Baker beware.

[teleportvalorant]

Hi everyone.If you read this message please read the Holy Quran the direct words and the final message from Almighty God.It will guide you to peace truth and happiness in this world and the afterworld with my lovely wishes....

[m.t.]

I thought the Easter bread traditionally had a cross decoration?

[rasheedaelahie]

She not even saying the amount of the ingredients

[Mansquic]

For some reason Paska means shit in finnish