Judas Buns: Traditional Easter Pastry

Step-by-step method

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At a glance

You're making a traditional Czech Easter pastry with a yeasted dough that requires some rising time and a bit of shaping creativity. The key steps involve preparing a yeast starter, mixing a honey-sweetened dough, letting it rise, shaping each piece into spirals or loops, and baking until golden before finishing with a honey drizzle. While the full process takes about two hours, most of that is hands-off rising time, so it's easier than it might seem.

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    Starter

    Warm about 200 ml of milk until lukewarm. Stir in a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of sugar, then crumble in the whole cake of fresh yeast. Let the starter rise until it's covered in nice bubbles – that's when it's ready.

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    Rising

    Meanwhile, sift the flour into a bowl with a pinch of salt and the sugar, and mix well. It's easiest if you have a stand mixer or a bread machine to knead the dough for you – it'll save you a lot of work.

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    Dough

    Pour the starter into the flour and sugar mixture, add the egg yolks and melted butter, then mix into a smooth, non-sticky dough. Keep extra milk on hand, as different flours absorb liquid differently, so you may need more or less each time.

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Judas Buns: Traditional Easter Pastry

bohynekuchyne
Active time total 50 min
Prep 15 min Cook 35 min
Plus 1 h 15 min of resting (not counted in active time)
10 Ingredients
6 Steps
Medium Difficulty

Ingredients — what you'll need

You only need 10 ingredients

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What's in it?

400 kcal

Calories

43 g

Carbohydrates

20 g

Fats

13 g

Proteins

The nutritional information is an estimate and may vary based on the specific ingredients used.

About this recipe

A sweet pastry that used to be a must-have in every home at Easter. Do you bake it? Do you know it? The shapes symbolize the rope Judas hanged himself with. They're traditionally baked on Maundy Thursday, so treat yourself to some that very day. This classic Easter pastry is brushed with honey, and if you like, you can even sweeten the dough itself with honey. The dough is shaped into a rope-like loop, a coiled letter 'S', or a spiral. In the old days, people believed Judas buns should be eaten at dawn – anyone who kept up this tradition was said to stay healthy all year round.

Vegetarian Easter Czech

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