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Tsoureki is a Greek Easter bread similar to Brioche or Challah with a soft, stringy texture and amazing taste! This is an easy recipe with sweetened condensed milk for a perfect, moist and fluffy result.

Tsoureki is one of the most popular Greek desserts. On Holy Thursday, everyone in Greece bakes Tsoureki and Koulourakia (Greek Easter cookies). This sweet bread is sometimes adorned with one or more Easter eggs. The dough is very rich and flavorful because it contains milk, sugar, eggs and butter.

In that sense, Tsoureki is similar to a brioche or Challah but has a fabulous stringy texture and a characteristic aroma from a spice called mahlab.

Mahlab is the pit from a certain sour cherry variety and it's actually one of my favorite spices! Many times mastic is also used to compliment the flavor of this Greek Easter bread, but I personally don't find it obligatory.

If you add the mahlab, some cinnamon and the zest of an orange, the smell is intoxicating enough to make you dream of it for many days and nights!

If you love Greek bread recipes make sure to check this Greek village bread (horiatiko psomi)!

Baking a sweet bread for Easter is a tradition in many countries and Greece is not an exception. Every Greek, after having a roasted leg of goat (or lamb) expects (or even demands) a thick slice of tsoureki for dessert.

There are a lot of Greek recipes for Tsoureki, all of them extremely delicious, but some are more difficult than others.

This is an easy recipe which will give you a delicious, aromatic and stringy Tsoureki with minimum effort. I believe that the sweetened condensed milk helps to keep it soft and fluffy for longer time.

Other Tsoureki recipes you can find in this blog is this chocolate stuffed Greek Easter bread and this Tsoureki wreath made with olive oil.

Ingredients

Flour:

It's very important to use bread flour and not all purpose flour or cake flour. Bread flour is a type of white flour with a high protein content (about 13% - 16% by weight).

Protein content is important because more protein equals more gluten which makes the dough more elastic and results in higher-rising loaves. It is also very important for the right stringy texture.

Yeast:

Yeast is a raising agent which helps the dough to rise and become fluffy and soft. For this recipe fresh yeast is used but you can also use active dry yeast without any problems.

Also, a small amount of baking powder is mixed in the flour to make the bread even fluffier.

Eggs:

Eggs make the tsoureki richer in taste so try to use fresh, free range eggs. This recipe asks for large eggs. Weighed without the shell, 1 large egg is about 1.8 oz or 50-55 grams

Sweetened condensed milk:

Instead of regular milk and sugar this recipe uses sweetened condensed milk which helps to keep the tsoureki soft and fluffy for many days.

Aromatics:

Mahlab (or Mahlepi) is the main spice that gives the Tsoureki its characteristic aroma. Mahlab is a small, wild cherry pit from the St. Lucy cherry. It has cherry, rose and bitter almond notes.

Other complimentary spices you can add are cinnamon, a pinch of cloves, orange (or lemon) zest, cardamom, mastic, vanilla.

Fat:

The traditional tsoureki is made with butter. However, there have been times when I replaced the butter with olive oil and the result was equally delicious!

Tips for the best texture

For every bread (sweet or savory) to have a stringy texture the development of gluten is very important.

So, the question is: How do you develop gluten?

1. First, you have to use a wheat flour high in gluten (the ingredient list should say that the protein content is more than 12% and ideally at around 15%).

This flour is often called bread flour and will give you the right base to work with. Don't use a yellow bread flour or a whole wheat flour.

2. Adding about 1 tablespooon of vital wheat gluten (large flour companies sell it online) per pound of flour will make the dough extremely stretchy and elastic!

I still hadn't the chance to experiment with wheat gluten, but as soon as I use it I will show you the results on my Instagram.

Update: I tried it and it makes a huge difference!

3. Sugar and butter inhibit gluten formation. If you want to prevent this, you can set aside the butter and the sugar, make the dough and knead it for some time to start the gluten development.

Then add the sugar and the butter gradually, while kneading. Sugar is harder to incorporate to the dough once it's mixed and that's why I prefer to add it from the start.

I keep the butter for the end of kneading (sometimes I even add it after the first rise).

4. Knead the dough for a long time. When you're making tsoureki, you can never knead enough, there's always room for more!

If you have a stand mixer, your life is easy. Just let it work for 20-30 minutes until the dough is soft and very elastic. If you want to knead by hand, take your time and enjoy the process. Kneading is a peaceful and calming process and I guarantee you'll enjoy it.

Note that if you knead by hand, it can be useful to keep some butter aside for your hands, for when the dough gets very sticky.

5. If you have the time you can let the dough rest in the fridge overnight (after the first rise). Yes, you guessed it right! Resting the dough promotes gluten development but also helps the flavors mature and blend together.

Shape the tsoureki the next day and continue according to the recipe. Keep in mind that because the dough will be cold, the second rise will take longer.

6. Finally, there's also a certain technique used in Hokkaido bread, which I have also seen used in tsoureki recipes, that makes it extra stringy.

I don't use it here because I wanted to keep the recipe easy. You will probably see me using it in another recipe in the future!

What yeast to use?

I have noticed that fresh yeast usually makes the bread dough rise faster and has a slightly more pleasant smell.

However, dry yeast is also fine. In plain bread recipes, usually 25 grams of fresh yeast or 1 tablespoon of dry yeast is enough to make the dough rise. In a richer dough like this Tsoureki a higher amount of yeast is needed to make it rise more efficiently.

How to know when it's ready for baking:

The easiest way is the poking test as Natasa from my daily sourdough bread describes:

In the poking test, we test the dough resistance and elasticity by pressing into the dough and observing its reaction. The test does not work immediately after you knead the dough, you should first let it rest and rise and then poke it with your finger, about half an inch deep.

underfermented bread: the indent fills up quickly (the gluten strands are strong, but somehow not elastic enough to allow the expansion of the dough)
overfermented bread: the indent stays as it is (gluten strands have weakened)
perfectly fermented: the indent comes back half way through (gluten strands are strong and elastic, meaning the expansion of the dough can be expected)

Many people also estimate when the loaf has almost doubled in volume and then put it in the oven, but because this is a 3D object it's not always easy to do a correct estimation, especially if someone is not an experienced baker.