Easter Eggs in a Nest

Once you've decorated some Easter eggs (see the next post, on instructions for decorating Ukrainian Easter Eggs,  here), you can bake them in a ring of dough to give them their own little nest.

The decorating needs to be done while the eggs are RAW, because you're going to bake them in the dough, and they will otherwise be overdone.  As it is, they will be perfectly "boiled" eggs, but they will have been baked, not boiled.

EASTER EGG BREAD

3 1/2 to 4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 pkg yeast
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg
grated zest of 1 lemon optional
water necessary to pull together the dough


I use a food processor, dump in the ingredients, add water as necessary for the dough to form a ball, knead for 45 seconds, remove and let rise in an oiled bowl. 

Let the dough rise, punch down, and let rise again.

It's very advisable for your raw eggs to be decorated already before you make the dough.  Life intervenes, and the dough won't wait for you to decorate eggs, but the decorated eggs can wait for the dough.  It's probably best not to refrigerate the eggs while the dough rises, as the condensation when the eggs come back out of the fridge could make the dyes run - but it's up to you.

When it's ready to make the nests, divide the dough into 10-12 balls. Punch a hole in the dough and enlarge it to form a bagel shape.  You could also make a dough snake and join the ends, but that didn't work very well for me.  The rich dough didn't want to join well, and I had a thin spot on one side and the eggs wanted to fall out of the nest.  not good. 

Place the nest on parchment paper on a pan (or a well-oiled or cornmealed pan), and place the egg into the nest.  It should be sitting up out of the nest about half way.

Preheat the oven to 375 while the dough is rising (for about 20-30 minutes).  Brush the nest with an egg wash of one egg mixed with a few drops of water, and add sprinkles if you'd like.

Bake for 15 minutes.  The egg, as you can see, will be perfectly done. (The interior of the yolk was a little underdone.  It could have used another minute or two.) If prepared ahead the nests need to be refrigerated.