Happy Easter!

It is Easter morning and I am having a blast reliving childhood memories today. My paternal grandmother's family is from the Azores, Portugal. Many of my memories of this side of the family gather around family, parties, and food. Definitely FOOD. My Great Grandma, Grandma Domingos, was a wonderful cook. On Easter that always included Portuguese Sweet Bread and Liguicia, a spicy Portuguese sausage.

We are off to gather with friends this afternoon, for brunch. I am in charge of sausage...so I thought I would pull out Grandma D's recipes and make it a true memory day.

Portuguese Sweet Bread (think Hawaiian Sweet Bread you buy in the store as a reference) is a sweet, egg bread. The recipe I have from my family includes 14 eggs, 1 cup of butter, 2+ cups of sugar, and 5 5+ lbs of flour to start with. Needless to say it doesn't make a small batch of bread. We laugh that you only make this when you know you are feeding the whole neighborhood. Because it is such a big recipe, it requires a big bowl. I think every kitchen in our family has one of these huge crockery bowls.


My bread bowl with a one-cup pyrex measuring cup for reference.
The bowl will hold at least 2 gallons.


Here is the dough resting and rising.

Told you I need a big bowl. By the time it is finished rising the first time it will fill the bowl completely. We usually make some loaves but most of it is formed into rolls in muffin tins.

While these are rising and baking, Grandma used to make Palilis. I have know idea how to spell this but it is basically fried strips of the dough. We would slather these with butter and munch while waiting for the rolls to bake.

Then there is the yummy smell of Linguicia cooking in a pan. I like to slice mine and start the cooking process in red wine.

My house sure smelled a lot like Grandma D's today as I prepped for Easter Brunch. I hope your Easter is full of fun, yummy memories this year too.