You know how some things are a common thread throughout your life? This sweet bread is one of those fibers in the fabric of my being. As a child, it graced our Easter table every year. Traditionally, it’s a large round ring filled with brightly colored eggs that become hard boiled once baked, but I always loved the bunny shaped ones. After all, what child wouldn’t love a rabbit shaped lemon-scented sweet bread?
The Carroll Gardens I grew up in is a shell of itself now. Court Street, the main thoroughfare, is littered with ghosts masquerading behind new storefronts. 292 Court Street will always be home to AMICO day care center where I went until I started kindergarten. Day care centers like that were meant to help working families like mine—my mother worked as a cashier across the street at Mastellone’s.
292 Court Street is now home to a Montessori day care center that costs more than $50,000/year but the bones of it date back to a time when Carroll Gardens’ working class parents had an affordable childcare option. A few doors down is my beloved Court Pastry, one of the few businesses that’s survived the growing pains of gentrification. Every sfogliatelle I taste is measured against their faintly cinnamon-scented, orange peel-flecked, ricotta filling one bound by crackly thin layers of dough. None measure up, even the ones I’ve eaten in Italy. That’s just how childhood memories go, you know?
We had a strict rule growing up that you only bought pastries and cakes from pastry shops, and bread from a bakery. It’s tended to hold true over the years, and makes sense since pastry is a very different skill set than bread baking, and for that reason, I don’t recommend Court Pastry’s Easter bread. It’s quite dense and dry. Don’t be fooled by their bunnies.
For a great Easter bread, perhaps the best next to making it yourself, can be found a couple of blocks down the street at Caputo Bakery. They sell out quickly during the season, or at least they used to, which is what led me to developing my own recipe for it back in 2011.
I was hosting my entire family for Easter for the very first time, and surprisingly it remains one of my happiest family memories. They could be demanding bunch, and stuck in tradition. I wanted a peaceful Easter brunch, and didn’t want to stress about the bread selling out, so I spent weeks developing my own recipe based on the taste and texture of the one sold at Caputo’s. Mikey even joined in on the bread making fun with Virginia. She was too young to remember, but I captured the memory on my phone of her and papa kneading a batch of it all those years ago.
On that Easter Sunday, we sat around the table for brunch, and not one argument broke out. No one complained about the menu—they actually loved the broccoli rabe & fresh ricotta frittata, featured in my cookbook on page 57. Most surprising is that everyone enjoyed each other’s company, no small feat for a group of feisty, opinionated Italian-Americans.
I knew nothing of the future, and that four months later Michael would die suddenly, or that my uncle would follow him 18 months afterwards. The universe gave me the gift of being present that Easter, and every year when the season rolls around to start baking it again, I’m reminded of those beautiful few hours on that late April afternoon.
—xo, j.