Portuguese Sweetbread
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- Prep Time: 8-12 hours
- Cook Time: 40 min
- Total Time: 0 hours
- Yield: 6-8 loaves
- Category: Baked Goods
Ingredients
1/2 cup of shortening (or lard)
3 packages of dry active yeast (1/4 oz envelopes)
1/2 cup of lukewarm water
2 cups of whole milk
2 cups of granulated sugar
1/2 cup of butter
3/4 tsp salt
10 cups of all-purpose flour
8 eggs * at room temperature
Egg Wash
1 egg
1 tablespoon of water
Instructions
1 In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water and let rise to double in size.
2 In a extra-larger bowl, add flour and salt and mix ingredients together.
3. In saucepan, melt butter and shortening in milk and cool to lukewarm.
4. In a medium bowl, beat eggs and sugar together.
5. Create a well in the large bowl of salt &flour, add the eggs and sugar, melted butter and milk and last add the yeast. Mix all ingredients together and knead until dough is nice and smooth (at least 20 min). Dough tends to be on the wet side so resist the urge to add much more flour. Let rise until double in size, usually six to eight hours.(more if cold weather)
6. Punch down, deflating the dough. Form individual breads and put in buttered and floured pans ( any shape or size will do).
The dough should fill only half the pan. Let rise again until dough doubles in size, filling the pan.
7. Brush top of dough with egg wash (beaten egg and water).
8. Bake at 325 degrees-preheated oven for 40 to 60 minutes (adjust longer cook time for larger loaves).*Please note if your oven runs hotter, please make sure to lower the temp to 300F . Using a large skewer insert in center to double check …if it’d dry…it’s done. The bread should be golden color. Please don’t over bake, or else the dough will be on the dry side. If top is browning and the center is still unbaked…cover the top with foil and place bake in oven..
Notes
I have many of my mother’s sweetbread pans, but if you find that you don’t have any here’s one from Portugalia Marketplace that you may like. You can see a larger image of it in my store, as well as a link to Portugalia to purchase it.
Baking this bread is a little tricky since it’s a very sensitive dough, but here are few things that I learned along the way.
I can’t wait to try your recipe for Sweet bread. We were stationed in the Azores at Lajes for two years, 86-88. We loved the Azores and the wonderful people we met there. I make a sweet bread every year from a recipe compiled in a small paper book (along with others) that I bought at the Stars and Stripes book store on base. Just found your show too. Brings back the most wonderful memories.
Thank you – this brings back great childhood memories of seeing my grandmother and mother making Massa for special occasions. Remembering waiting for the first batch to come out of the oven. Great with tea with lots of milk or glass of milk! Lol
Hi Maria! Thank you so much for sharing the recipe! I was gifted your Azorean Cooking book as a gift from my mother. Both my mom and dad are from the Azores and I have vivid memories of my Avó and mom making massa. I always wanted to make it myself, which took me years to do. After receiving your book I decided to make your Tia Lilia’s recipe. My husband, Portuguese neighbor and I loved it!! I’m going to make a batch for a local artisan market and found this one. However, I noticed it’s a bit different from your moms recipe in the book. How many loaves does this one make? The recipe listed in the book states it yields 5 to 6, 9 inch loaves. Thank you so much for your time and help! Obrigado!!
Hi Lisa,
So sorry to have missed your message for whatever reason your message went into spam.
I hope that you and your family had a wonderful Easter and so happy to hear that you’re enjoying my Tia Lilia‘s sweet bread recipe her recipe makes a smaller batch than my moms but as with anything you can double up my Tia Lilia‘s recipe and it’ll give you more sweet bread… also the reason I say 5 to 6 it depends on the size of the baking pan you’re using obviously if you’re using bigger pans you’re going to make less loaves smaller pans more loaves.
I hope that helps
Best
Maria
Just seeing these recipes almost made me cry missing the family days with my mixed Portuguese/Sicilian family that I didn’t get much time with. My Portuguese side is orig from Azores . I plan to come visit soon. Thank you for your channel.
My grandmother was from the Azores and she made the most wonderful sweetbread. The whole house smelt amazing and it is such a wonderful memory for me. She never used a recipe my aunts tell me and sometimes she would use up to a dozen eggs. Her bread had a heaviness to it that I can never find in store bought breads. I look forward to trying your recipe.
what is the best size to bake the bread to look like the picture
The pan belonged to my late mother and it’s quite large… it’s a 12 inch pan that is 5 inches deep
Just listened to your 2024 podcast about Easter and Sweet bread. I related to so many things you said there. Many years ago, I searched the internet for a recipe like my Grandma’s. She taught me how to make it as a pre-teen but with no recipe to follow as an adult I could not remember. She never measured anything. Finally I found a recipe that was similar and it took me 7 times over many months to get it to a bread that was sort of close to my Grandma’s. But I was proud of what I accomplished even if it was not quite the same. This year I taught my 9 year old daughter and 12 year old niece how to make it. I posted a picture on Facebook with the caption “Portuguese girls making their first Sweet bread”. One of my cousins in Portugal replied to the post and said “Thank you for carrying on the traditions”. That made me even prouder! Thank you Maria for all you do to carry on our Portuguese traditions.
Thank you so much Alana, I appreciate your kind words. We definitely need to continue and teach our recipes and traditions to the next generation. It’s so important to never loose sight of the importance.