Easter Crown

Brioche Crown filled with candy fruits, brush with chocolate
on top and dust with icing sugar.

Brioche Crown for the family, it looks good, tastes delicious, it is a perfect cake for Easter celebration.  The preparation can be done a few days earlier, which is suitable for all busy people.
The Crown is made out of a rich brioche dough:  plain flour, yeast, milk, a lot of butter and eggs, marmalade for extra flavour, and of course salt, sugar too.

I love brioches, once you are happy with the dough, you could make so many different traditional shapes,  from a loaf, brioche a tete to brioche crown.  You can have sweet and savoury brioche, and the dough freezes well, simply defrost it in the refrigerator overnight if you wish to bake it in the morning.

Now you can get ready, make your shopping list.  Get the dough organised by Thursday, and you will have the brioche by Saturday or Sunday for the Easter Celebration.

The Brioche Dough for Easter 2015

Ingredients for Easter Crown.  Easter 2015

Easter Crown to share.  The recipe worked well, it was based on my basic brioche dough, but a few adjustments were made.  I added extra eggs and butter for richness and added marmalade for sweetness with citrus flavour.

The dough.

The dough before first proofing

The dough is doubled after proofing
for one hour and a half

After mixing the dough well, I did it with an electric mixer, the dough will rise to double after one-hour proofing.

Punch the dough down, and refrigerate until you are ready for shaping.  The dough will rise again, and you have to knead lightly before shaping the brioche as you want it.

The look of the dough in the refrigerator, it has risen again. The dough is outside of the fridge and needs a light kneading and is now ready for shaping.

The dough is in the refrigerator.

The dough is outside of the refrigerator
It is ready for shaping

Shaping and Baking

Long and thin pieces of the brioche dough with sultana filling.
Turning over to enclose the filling, roll to make a sausage shape.
Twist off the two long rolls, and join the edges to make a circle
shape to look like a crown.

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The Brioche Crown before baking.
It has to be baked in a hot oven at 180 degrees C or 350 F

Freshly baked Brioche Crown

The temperature reading for the inside brioche is 88 C or 190 F

Let the brioche sit on tin for ten minutes, transfer to a cooling tray to cool.  Serve slightly warm or room temperature.  It keeps for a few days inside an airtight container.

Decorate as you please, you can drizzle the brioche with chocolate, dust with icing powder or dress with sweet butter and roasted nuts.

I prepared it as  Easter Crown; first I brushed the brioche with sweet butter, dusted with icing powder and garnished with Easter chocolate Eggs.  It looked good, and I am pleased to share it.

Brioche Crown for 2015 is Ready to Serve

 It's a crowd pleaser, people, friends enjoyed the brioche with coffee and tea.

What is sweet butter: it is my term for mixed icing sugar with melted unsalted butter to brush any top of cakes or bread.

For my family, the Easter Crown is decorated with boiled eggs instead of chocolate eggs.

Boiled Eggs - Easter 2011

Our Easter Crown - Easter 2011

Did you know that you could make savoury brioche crown with filling? Fill with egg, cheese and leek mixture, it is delicious.  This savoury brioche is excellent for Easter luncheon, serve the brioche warm with side salads.

Note for my brioche dough: Instead of using special pastry for a Russian pie-Kulebyaka use the basic brioche, it works well too.  I may have to show you how to do it, it is not difficult.

Recipe for basic brioche, look in an older post.


To Be Continued, Stay Tuned.
Susy