Buttery Orange Bread

I Have Never Been Happier With Any Bread I’ve Ever Baked!

Soft and buttery, with bits of candied oranges, plumped currants, fennel seeds, and sesame seeds, this bread kind of has it all. But first, an explanation is required. I tend to go down rabbit holes when I run into a recipe or food tradition which intrigues me, but of which I’m unfamiliar. This one began when I was perusing Easter bread traditions. Those types of traditions fascinate me because I’m a bread person. I enjoy baking it more than most anything else. So, when I saw an article about Paska, an enriched bread, traditionally eaten at Easter in Eastern European countries, I was off and running.

Digging around I saw articles that said it was sometimes eaten with sweetened cheese or cheese spreads. I also saw some variations that were studded with candied citrus rinds or raisins. This got me to thinking about how I would choose to flavor and eat a bread of this kind. I wasn’t interested in the sweet cheese spread. I wanted to slice it up, toast it, and spread it with butter.

My son has been on a kick of candying slices of oranges – different types such as navel, cara cara, and blood oranges. He’s not been candying only the peels. He’s been candying entire slices and his technique couldn’t be easier. I’ve included the recipe below. These are droolingly delicious. Still juicy but softly candied, we’ve got a stash of them in the freezer, so I knew I wanted to add pieces of these candied oranges to the bread. By the way, besides using them in baking, they’re fantastic on a cheese board, or dunked in a little melted dark chocolate. I love them chopped and stirred into a bowl of plain yogurt. My son’s been adding them to vanilla ice cream. We’re just getting started figuring out all the ways we’ll be using them. If you don’t want to make them, you could purchase some candied orange rind. While it would still be good, it won’t be as good as it could be.

It seemed to me that a deeper flavoring would be a nice balance, so I steeped some dried currants * in a little orange juice and tossed them into the dough. But I also wanted some type of warm flavor and finally decided on toasted fennel seeds. Their earthy quality seemed like a good match with the other things I had going on here. 

Having figured out what additions I was going to use, I had to decide on my base recipe for the dough and ended up using King Arthur’s recipe because I know I can trust their recipes. It’s a straightforward yeast dough, enriched with an egg, butter, and milk. But there’s not an overabundance of enrichment, which was what I wanted. I didn’t want to end up with a brioche type of bread. This bread needed to be able to stand up to containing my additions, be easily sliced, and not so soft that it falls apart. 

The most common shape of the loaf had a braid that ran around the perimeter of the loaf, but I liked one of King Arthur’s variations that had a braid in a criss-cross pattern on top of the loaf. I decided that dividing and rolling out a portion of the dough into the 3 long strands that are necessary for a braid wouldn’t work very well if the dough had pieces of candied orange in it, so before adding the citrus I went ahead and took out a third of the dough, which only contained the currants and fennel seeds and let it rise separately from the rest of the dough to which I added the candied oranges. 

After the first rise, I shaped the dough and topped it with the braid. The loaf is baked in a 9 inch cake pan and I was hoping for a nice tall rise. It did not let me down. It rose up beautifully. Right before it went into the oven I brushed it with an egg wash, sprinkled on sparkling sugar ,* and sesame seeds. Watching it bake reinforced my feelings about baking breads. It continued to rise in the oven and developed a gorgeous crust. I know it sounds trite, but it really does feel magical to watch bread grow from a blob of dough into something so beautiful. The thrill is always there for me. 

But of course, what’s most important is how does it taste?? Not having the patience to wait for it to completely cool, we tried a slightly warm slice, all on its own and what an absolute delight it is. I didn’t overwhelm it with additions, so I could get a good sense of the bread itself and it’s even lovelier than I had hoped. It is very tender, but crusty, and has a rich butter flavor. But those additions are what took it to another level. I loved the candied bits of orange, the currants, and the fennel seeds. They were a perfect match. But if fennel seeds aren’t your thing, simply omit them, although I think they nicely balanced the flavors and added a lot of interest. After toasting a slice and slathering on some butter I knew I’d chosen well. I wouldn’t alter it in any way. 

Although this is traditionally made at Easter, I will be making it throughout the year. It’s too good to save for only one day of the year.