Sweet Easter Bread – How to Make Authentic Folares

Folar da Páscoa is a traditional Portuguese bread consumed during Easter. It’s similar to a brioche, buttery, slightly sweet, and flavoured with fennel seeds, cinnamon powder, and orange zest. Keep reading to learn how to make this delicious Portuguese sweet bread at home!

Folar – Portugal’s Traditional Easter Bread

You know Easter is right around the corner when seasonal Portuguese treats start appearing on supermarket shelves and bakery counters. Sponge cakes, almonds coated in chocolate, and folar. There are several versions of folar in Portugal, sweet and savoury, to me the most emblematic is Folar da Páscoa or Folar de Ovos. A bread loaf that’s soft, deliciously buttery and lightly sweet, decorated with boiled eggs nestled between strips of dough. My favourite way to enjoy it is whilst still warm with butter, but it can be toasted, served with cheese, jam, honey, you name it.

Flowers for Folares

My favourite traditions are those involving food, and Portugal is full of them! On Palm Sunday, or the Sunday before Easter Sunday, the Portuguese have the tradition of gifting their godmothers a bouquet of violets. To repay the gesture the madrinhas (godmothers) bake a folar for them to take home, reinforcing the Easter spirit of renewal, family, and the joy of giving.

Authentic Portuguese Sweet Bread Recipe (Folar de Ovos)

You probably already have in your kitchen all the ingredients you need to make an authentic Portuguese Easter bread. That is, flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, instant dry yeast, salt, and the spices that make this bread unique: fennel seeds, and cinnamon powder. I also like to add a touch of orange zest to the bread dough, but that’s totally optional. One more ingredient I forgot to mention, onion peel. Yes, you read it right, they are boiled with the eggs that will be used to decorate the folar, acting as a natural dye!

The Method

Making this Portuguese sweet bread is super simple! First you combine warm milk with sugar, and the yeast. On top of that you add melted butter, lightly beaten eggs, flour, a pinch of salt, the spices and the orange zest. The next step is to mix it well until it forms a wet dough, you can either use a wooden spoon or a stand mixer with the hook attachment.

Then it’s time to cover the dough with a cloth and let it proof in a warm part of your house for about 1h30m or until it doubles in size. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and work it for a couple of minutes adding more flour as you go. All there’s left to do is shape them, placing the boiled eggs on top and securing with two strips of dough forming a cross pattern (step by step below).

Cover the bread back with the cloth, and let it proof once more for 1h. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180°C, and generously brush the folar with some egg wash. Bake for about 30 minutes or until they are golden brown and feel light, let it rest over a baking rack for about 5 minutes before cutting into it.

How to Make Portuguese Sweet Easter Bread

How to Make Portuguese Sweet Easter Bread (Folar)

Recipe by Ana Veiga

5.0 from 1 vote

Course: SnacksCuisine: Mediterranean, PortugueseDifficulty: Easy

Servings

20

servings

Prep time

2

hours 

30

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

Calories

163

kcal

Folar da Páscoa is a traditional Portuguese bread consumed during Easter. It’s similar to a brioche, buttery, slightly sweet, and flavoured with spices.

Ingredients

• 500 g Bread Flour + More

• 5 g Instant Dry Yeast

• 6 Large Eggs

• 200 ml Warm Full Fat Milk

• 100 g Granulated Sugar

• 80 g Butter – Melted

• 1/2 tsp Salt

• 1 tsp Cinnamon Powder

• 1 tsp Fennel Seeds

• 1/2 Orange (Zest)

• Onion Peels

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine the warm milk, granulated sugar, and the yeast. Stir well to help dissolve the yeast.
• Lightly beat 3 eggs, add to the yeast bowl along with the melted butter, flour, salt, cinnamon powder, fennel seeds, and orange zest. Mix well with a wooden spoon until it forms a wet dough. You can also use a stand mixer with the hook attachment.
• Cover the bowl with a damp cloth. Let it proof in a warm corner for about 1h30m or until the dough doubles in size.
• Meanwhile, boil 2 eggs with the peels of 1 onion until they absorb the peel’s natural dye, set aside.
• Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
• Transfer the dough to a floured surface with the help of a dough scrapper. Knead for about 5 minutes, adding more flour if the dough feels too sticky.
• Split the dough in half. Cut a third of each half, set aside. Roll the bigger portions of dough into round loaves. Split the smaller portions into two, rolling them into strips slightly wider than the diameter of the loaves.  
• Place a hard-boiled egg on top of each one of the folares, pressing down slightly. Place the strips on top of the egg in a cross pattern, tuck the ends under the loaves.
• Lightly beat the last egg, brush the top of the loaves generously with it. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy whilst still warm with butter and cheese.

Tips

• The decoration of folar isn’t set in stone, you can add more eggs and vary the patterns on top.
• Be careful not to overstretch the strips of dough when decorating the folar as they can tear during baking.
• This recipe yields two loaves of about 25cm in diameter. You can also bake 1 larger loaf if you prefer.

Have You Tried This Recipe? Let me know in the comments!

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• Francesinha – Authentic Francesinha from Portugal
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