How to Feast Well after Fasting

E ight loaves, fragrant with citrus and each with a vibrantly dyed egg baked into their center, sat on my counter. It was Holy Saturday, and after a long day of resting, proofing, and baking, each loaf still had quite a journey ahead of it.

Easter bread, in our home, is essential for this feast. My mom has been experimenting with various recipes for years and will sometimes make two different versions in one baking session. To her great delight, despite half of her children having moved out, we all kept up the bread tradition this season. Sibling No. 2 and her husband made intricately braided loaves, sibling No. 3 made cinnamon rolls, sibling No. 4 made cream puffs (we told her that counted as bread), and yours truly made, well, probably far too many desserts along with her bread.

Living in an apartment complex is odd at times. You come to know the various sounds of your neighbors, but you may never learn their names. Determined to fight the impersonality, even if in a small way, I decided that loaves one through five would be theirs on Easter Sunday. One for Mr. Late Shift, two for the Silent Couple, and two for the Family Who Loves Their Meat Pounder. Complete, of course, with a lemon glaze, a note wishing them a happy Easter, and a directive not to eat the decorative dyed egg.

Those eggs had been first on my to-do list on Saturday, and all eight of them took lengthy baths in bright neon dye — to the detriment of my white coffee mugs. Then, it was on to the bread. I’ve still not remedied my insufficient-baking-sheet situation, so juggling two batches of bread rings with a double batch of cream puffs proved a challenge. Undaunted, I tried to stagger my mixing and rising times and fit the cream-puff bake in between. It was nearly successful, except for the very last bread ring. Not having a cookie sheet on which to let it rise, I had to move it right before baking — a bread-baking taboo if there ever was one — and that ring suffered a collapse.

While the bread rings baked and the cream-puff shells cooled, I started a ginger-cookie pie crust. Unbeknownst to me, sibling No. 2 and her husband were also making desserts for the family celebration, and we were all blissfully baking away with little regard for our waistlines. At the request of No. 2’s husband, they had received a lamb-shaped cake pan for their wedding, and they produced a very impressive creation. The process was fraught with peril and resulted in many hilarious texts to the family chat, but the end result tasted superb.

That wasn’t until Sunday, however, and around 3 p.m. on Saturday, I still had a laundromat trip to take, a grocery-store run to endure, and a banoffee pie to construct. Even though I loathe bananas, I was inspired by a Tastemade video to attempt a banoffee pie a few weeks ago. After a disastrous attempt at making my own caramel filling, I resorted to canned dulce de leche spiked with salt and vanilla extract. My brother-in-law declared it his new favorite dessert, and I decided to bring it to our Easter festivities — along with the already demanded cream puffs. Round one taught me to put the sliced bananas on top just before serving, so only the crust and filling were prepped on Saturday. Personally, my favorite part of making this dessert is using a vegetable peeler to shave chocolate on top as a finishing touch.

For those keeping score at home, I was now down to three Easter bread loaves — soon to be two. Loaf six traveled to the Easter Vigil with me and went home with a friend. Loaves seven and eight didn’t have destinations yet, but I had a few ideas and planned to carry them out in the morning.

I was under strict orders from sibling No. 7 to be back at the homestead “as early as possible.” So, loaded down with cream-puff shells and filling, an undecorated banoffee pie, chocolate chips, bananas, two loaves of Easter bread, a pint of heavy cream, and a camera, I wended my merry way west with the sun peaking over my shoulder.

Learning to feast well is on par with learning to fast well, and feast we certainly did on that lovely Sunday. Mom’s bread kicked off the morning (she used orange zest in hers — heavenly), and then the cousins arrived with all the proper brunch items. There was some concern that the sweet-potato gnocchi Mom had prepped for dinner wouldn’t be enough, so two batches of regular focaccia — with grateful thanks to King Arthur Baking’s no-knead version — were started. Pro tip: Add fresh rosemary into your focaccia dough, and sprinkle sliced garlic on top.

The kitchen is rarely unoccupied in our home. If we aren’t cooking in it, we’re washing dishes, and before you know it, we’re back in to make another mess. The brunch dishes were still drying when Mom and I started the focaccia, but the house and we got a reprieve when we strolled out for an afternoon walk to let the bread rise. Post-walk and in between sessions of boiling gnocchi, I managed to fill nearly 30 cream puffs and finish up my banoffee pie. No. 2 and husband arrived, bringing not only their lamb cake but a German “bee-sting cake” stuffed with cream. Next year, we need to all pick desserts that don’t require refrigeration — we nearly overwhelmed both of my parents’ trusty machines.

What a dinner that was. Cold ham, seven-layer salad, asparagus with homemade hollandaise sauce, and much more graced the groaning table, and we laughed and chatted our way through all of it. The clean-up crew set to work, Mom’s good china survived to see another holiday, and to save them from more dirty dishes, we pulled out paper plates for dessert. Everything was delicious, despite the slight awkwardness that inevitably comes with cutting a cake shaped like a lamb.

Full and content, we retired to the living room, there to end the night with a rusty rendition of Mozart’s “Alleluia” and our attempt at Vivaldi’s “Gloria.”

Oh yes, I still had those two original loaves of bread. Loaf No. 7, after two more car rides, ended up at the airfield with my flight instructor. And loaf No. 8? Safe and sound, back with me. A delicious Easter Monday breakfast.