Bunny Breads

First, decide on the type of eggs to use: traditionally, raw eggs are dyed and cooked in the oven within the bread (fabulous if serving hot, but yolks may be 'fudgy' if served at room temperature). Alternatively, hard-boil the eggs first to avoid over-cooked yolks later. (Note: simple, single-color eggs are sufficient for presentation).

Next, decide on your desired presentation: rainbow rings (6 eggs in a round 'braid'), baskets (eggs in a bread ring, with or without a 'handle'), or bunnies. This decision will guide later steps.

Choose your decorations: you can use tiny multi-colored hard sugar balls (for cakes and cookies), jimmies, sparkly sugar, or flat sugar shapes (such as barnyard mix shapes like pigs, chicks, ducks, rabbits, and cows). Select decorations that are not too big to stick onto the egg glaze.

For the bread: Scald the milk; add sugar, salt, butter, and lemon oil or grated lemon peel. Cook the mixture until lukewarm (it's good to toss it into your big mixing bowl if that bowl needs to be warmed up). Sprinkle yeast on top of the warm water and stir to dissolve. Add the dissolved yeast to the milk mixture along with the 2 eggs and 2 1/2 cups of flour.

Beat the mixture until smooth (120 strokes is traditional and effective).

Stir in enough of the remaining flour, a little at a time, to form a dough that is easy to handle. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic, 5-8 minutes. Place in a lightly greased bowl; turn the dough over to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch down the dough, turn, cover, and let rise again until almost doubled, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare baking sheets (full-sized cookie sheets hold six individual breads or one braid) by coating them with cooking spray or covering them with parchment paper.

For individual breads (bunnies or baskets): Divide the dough into 12 even portions. Roll out a portion between your hands into an 8-10 inch rope. Cut off about a quarter of the rope if making bunnies, or about an eighth if making baskets with handles. Pinch the remaining dough into a circle, securing the dough well. Put an egg onto the prepared baking sheet, and stretch the dough around it. If you've reserved some dough, roll it into a long enough rope to make the basket handle or two bunny ears (make it long, cut in half, fold it double; pinch into the bottom of the bread ring above one long end of the egg).

For rainbow rings: Roll bread dough out into two ropes as long as possible. Leaving 'tails' about long enough to go around the last egg, cross the two ropes and put one end of an egg against the joint, running lengthwise. Make the ropes cross over/under at the end of the egg and place the next egg at the joint of the ropes. Continue until you get to the sixth egg. (If you're truly compulsive, arrange the eggs in rainbow order). As you tuck the last egg into the last of the ropes, pinch the ends together securely.

Brush the assembled breads with beaten egg. Let rise until doubled. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375°F.

Brush breads with egg wash again, then sprinkle on decorations as desired (pink sugar down the crease of the bunny ears is very charming). Bake individual breads for 20-25 minutes; rainbow rings for 30-40 minutes.

Baskets can be removed from pans promptly. For bunnies and rings, wait 10-15 minutes so the bread can set up a little. Then, remove to a cooling rack (or serving dish!) but be careful to support the shaped bread as much as you can.

Note that your eggs may come out a little spattered even if you were careful not to splash the egg wash, but the breads are so lovely anyway, no one notices.

Finishing notes on the bunnies: Take a freezer marker and draw eyes and two back-to-back fishhooks for a bunny nose/mouth. Cut 1/4 inch wide strips of paper about 3 inches long (a 3x5 inch card works fine for this). Then cut the strips almost all the way lengthwise into three very narrow strips, leaving an approximately square 'tab' at one end (if using cards, you'll get curly whiskers). Take a glue stick and stick one set of whiskers beside each side of the 'nose' to create bunnies. (Note: marker and glue stick are for the egg shell and are not edible).