40 Amazing Easter Bread Recipes

The perfect recipe for spring. This slightly sweet, lemony, and tender braided bread lands somewhere between brioche and challah. Serve the impressive poppy seed-studded loaf with dinner, use it to for sandwiches, or make an unconventional French toast. 

This healthier take on banana bread uses yogurt instead of butter, but it's just as moist and indulgent as classic recipes. This banana bread recipe isn't just easy. It's also highly customizable and can adapt to a number of flavors and substitute ingredients. Banana bread should form a crack down the center as it bakes--a sign the baking soda is doing its job. Serve toasted with a smear of cream cheese, Greek yogurt, or peanut and top with mixed nuts, if desired. You can even customize your bread with a crunchy streusal topping that the kids will love.

Our beautiful Easter centerpiece bread offers a healthier take on the classic egg- and butter-enriched bread. It’s made completely with white whole-wheat flour and less added sugar (in this case, honey) than many traditional recipes. Our techniques and ingredient choices leave you with a soft, fluffy, lightly sweet bread that’ll garner raves: The soaking step at the beginning allows the dense flour to hydrate more fully, resulting in a more tender bread, and the vital wheat gluten—which you’ll find near the yeast and flour in well-stocked supermarkets—aids in tenderness as well. The colored eggs are decorative, though you could eat them if you’d like (they’ll be overcooked). If they discolor from baking, simply twist to remove them, and replace with more vibrant eggs. The finished bread is gloriously large and serves a crowd. If you have leftovers, try slicing and toasting for breakfast—or using for French toast or bread pudding.

Got a boatload of zucchini? A loaf of so-simple quick bread is a delightful, kid-friendly way to put it to use. With bright citrusy notes, toasty pine nuts, and a delightful texture delivered by the blend of semolina and almond flours, this Italian-inspired uptake on your typical zucchini bread is sure to impress. 

This impressive braided loaf is a show-stopping addition to any springtime table. For more incredible bread recipes, check out  Zoë Francois and Jeff Hertzberg’s Holiday and Celebration Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

The entire family will love the sticky-fingered fun of tearing apart these sweet layers filled with tangy cranberries and bright orange zest. The recipe makes two loaves of bread; give one as a gift, and take the other to brunch.

To make your own everything bagel seasoning mix for this recipe, combine 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, 1 tablespoon poppy seeds, 1 tablespoon dried minced onion, 2 teaspoons dried minced garlic, and 1 teaspoon coarse salt in a small bowl.

Got a boatload of zucchini? A loaf of so-simple quick bread is a delightful, kid-friendly way to put it to use. Incredibly rich in toasty flavor, this nutty twist on classic zucchini bread was a fast favorite in the test kitchen. If you don’t have cashew butter on hand, feel free to use peanut butter or almond butter for the creamy glaze instead—either would be equally delicious. 

Featuring mini powdered sugar donuts, this whimsical twist on monkey bread is the perfect sweet centerpiece for a casual brunch get-together. 

These gooey and gorgeous homemade cinnamon rolls are a vibrant uptake on those classic canned orange rolls Mom would break out for special occasion breakfasts. Never made sweet rolls from scratch before? Trust us, the dough is far easier to make and work with than you might think. And with a soft pink colored grapefruit-cream cheese glaze and a decadent filling featuring pistachios, dark brown sugar, fresh ginger, cardamon, and cinnamon, these morning glories are sure to steal the show at any brunch gathering. If you want to prep them ahead, simply follow the recipe through step 6 the night before and pop your rolls into the fridge; just be sure to bring them to room temperature the following day before baking and glazing.

Buttery, yeasty heaven you can enjoy at brunch, dinner, or whenever. 

Soft, tender, pillowy, and buttery. What's not to love? Once you go homemade, it's hard to go back to store-bought dinner rolls. 

Two key techniques make these whole-grain biscuits light and fluffy: smashing the butter into the flour mixture with your fingers, and folding the dough to create layers.

Skip the crumpets that you can find in the refrigerated section at the grocery store, because these are way better. If you don't have English muffin rings, you can use a cleaned can of tuna, as long as the top and bottom are removed. Serve these super simple treats with butter, assorted jams, a drizzle of honey, and of course, hot tea.

The Southern dessert canon is loaded with sweet treats that represent cultural influences that have swept through our region, specifically in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas. As a result, we’ve been spoiled by a number of treats including kuchen, a German word meaning “cake.” In her book, Cake: A Slice of History, food historian Alysa Levene explains that German immigrants were fond of social occasions that called for coffee and cake. “The German style of kaffe und kuchen was part of Irma Rombauer’s family heritage and explains the heavy presence of German cakes in The Joy of Cooking,” she writes. While some types of kuchen are more bread-like and made with a yeasted dough, our version has a tender, fluffy crumb and a dimpled top covered with strawberries and almonds.

Even if you're a baking newbie, you can turn these out with ease, thanks to frozen puff pastry. To keep them from sticking, remove the pastries from the pan right after baking.

Because frying doughnuts is just too much

These sweet and savory rolls are inspired by the Howard family's love of sausage biscuits with muscadine preserves.

These ooey-gooey, pecan-topped cinnamon rolls live up to their name. Paige and her mother prepare the dough on Christmas Eve and bake the sticky buns first thing in the morning. Bonus: Everyone enjoys waking up to the sweet smell of cinnamon and brown sugar on Christmas Day.

Comparable to gougères, these light and cheesy buns feature a golden-crispy exterior and delightfully spongy center. This tasty gluten-free bread is best enjoyed warm from the oven, and is a delicious addition to the breakfast table (and it also makes for an excellent afternoon snack). Tapioca starch comes from cassava, a brown starchy tuber also known as yuca (not yucca) and is commonly labeled tapioca flour, tapioca starch, cassava starch or manioc flour. The starch can either be dried for sweet tapioca (polviho doce), or fermented (polviho azedo)—which is what you want for this recipe. This slightly sour starch is what gives pão de queijo  it’s signature chewy texture and a thicker crust as opposed to the unfermented variety. If you have trouble finding this variety, Bob’s Red Mill makes a tapioca flour/starch that is not fermented, but will make a fine substitute, if need be. Traditionally, pão de queijo is made with Minas cheese, a salty, aged, and slightly soft cow’s milk cheese, but a combination of Parmigiano-Reggiano and sharp white cheddar makes a great, easily obtained, swap for this recipe. You’ll use a similar method to making a pate a choux dough for this bread. When stirring in the tapioca starch, the mixture will be very dry, but keep stirring until it is incorporated before transferring to the mixer. The dough will look scrambled after beating in the eggs, but should come together a bit more once the cheese is added. Keep in mind, it’s super helpful to spray your scoop with cooking spray after scooping each ball of dough. For this recipe, we start the oven temperature high in order to help the bread puff up, but dropping the temperature allows it to cook through without getting overly brown.

Texas Roadhouse’s buttery-sweet rolls are cherished far and wide for good reason—they’re delicious. And now, you can enjoy a fresh, warm batch at home, anytime you please.

Potato flour serves as the backbone for this delightfully simple Swedish classic. Though gluten-free, sandkaka is similar in texture to a dense, buttery pound cake and, thanks to the starchiness of the potato flour, will retain its moisture for days. 

You can make the dough for these tender, buttery rolls the night before.

Everybody's favorite Jewish cookie gets a savory makeover in this salty, crunchy treat. Perfect served as an appetizer or as a part of a special breakfast spread, this everything rugelach is the perfect marriage between flaky dough and classic everything bagel toppings. Eat them on their own, or smear on a thin layer of cream cheese and top with fresh lox and capers for a non-traditional snack.

These tender, lightly sweetened whole-grain muffins have a special can’t-put-your-finger-on-it flavor thanks to garam masala. Look for garam masala in the spice aisle; large spice brands make it. If you don’t have it or can’t find it, you can substitute an equal amount of cinnamon.

Tender, moist, and fluffy, this classic babka recipe is like a cinnamon roll in sliceable loaf form—which makes for unlimited possibilities. A fresh warm slice is delightful on it’s own, while the leftovers are the perfect starting point for inspired sweet sandwiches, bread pudding, and more. We found that this cinnamon swirl loaf is especially awesome for making French toast. 

Recipes for this popular tea bread are handed down through the generations. Here's a healthy, gluten-free loaf everyone can enjoy.