Portuguese Sweet Bread
Makes 7 small 4x6" loaves, 1 large 9x5" loaf + enough extra dough for Malasadas
Ingredients
- 5 lbs all-purpose flour
- 4 cups sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 15 eggs, beaten
- ½ lb melted butter
- 3 cups milk, scalded & cooled to lukewarm
- 3 packages of dry yeast
- ½ cup warm water
- 1½ tbsp vanilla
- cooking oil (for Malasadas)
How-to
- In a large pot, and using a long wooden spoon, mix together flour and sugar
- Mix in salt
- Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the beaten eggs
- Pour in the melted butter and lukewarm milk and stir to incorporate ingredients
- Dissolve yeast in ½ cup warm water and add to the pot
- Add vanilla and knead dough about 10-15 minutes until dough is airy in consistency
- Cover dough with a clean towel and an afghan (or if you want to totally stick to Bea's recipe, also cover with a man's jacket and cross the arms) and put in warm place (near fireplace, above refrigerator)
- Let the dough rise until is is double in size (about 6 hours)
- Punch down the dough and let rise again until double (about 4 more hours)
- On a floured surface, divide the dough into loaves. Knead and get the air bubbles out and continue to knead until it feels lighter and airy. Let rise again
- Bake small loaves for 45 minutes at 300 degrees. Large loaf - 1 hour.
- Take out of oven and brush with melted butter to give it a nice glaze
To Make the Malasadas
- Put about 2" of cooking oil in a deep pan (when you put the dough in the pan, the oil will rise so make sure you account for that)
- Take some of the Sweet Bread batter, stretch and shape into 3 inch rounds
- Let them sit on the counter until they rise (about 45 minutes)
- Drop about 4 at a time into the oil. Flip when brown
- Remove from oil and put on paper towel to absorb some of the oil
- Shake them in a paper bag with sugar to finish
- Eat immediately. They're the best when they're warm!