Watch Me Make Paska; The Best Recipe for Ukrainian Easter Bread

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

For the full recipe, visit http://paskabread.com
Explore more recipes & tutorials on my site: https://meganpsmith.com
Music for this video is given generously for use by award-winning cellist: https://bensollee.com/

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Music for this video is given generously for use by award-winning cellist, @bensollee.
If you like this video and want to support the efforts in Ukraine by donating with me to World Central Kitchen, you can do so here: https://donate.wck.org/fundraiser/378...

To learn how to make an apple pie, take a few moments to watch my other tutorial here:
   • How to Make an Apple Pie by Art of Homemaking  

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.