Here is the recipe, as I’ve been making it:
Dough:
576g (3 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup lukewarm water
1 slightly beaten egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
I make the dough in the Cuisinart with the dough hook. Mix yeast, sugar, and salt in water. Dissolve well. Add egg, and oil. Add flour and knead one or two minutes until well mixed. Cover mixer bowl with a wet towel and place in a warm spot to rise for 1 hour. While rising, prepare filling.
Filling:
1 pound Virginia Ham, cubed or sliced thin and cut into small pieces
1 pound Guiggisburg Swiss Cheese, cubed or sliced thin and cut into small pieces
1/2 pound pepperoni, cubed or pizza sized slices, quartered
5 eggs
pinch of pepper
Combine ham, swiss, pepperoni, eggs, and pepper. After dough has risen for 1 hour, split the dough in half. Roll half the dough out on a floured surface. Spread half the filling on top. Roll the dough and filling mixture together and place in a loaf pan. The rolling doesn’t need to be very precise, just flop the dough over on itself a couple of times and plop it in the pan. I used 5lb (11 3/4″ x 5 5/8″ x 3 3/16″) pans, if you use a different size, cooking time may vary. Repeat for the remaining dough and filling. Bake at 340F for 45 – 60 minutes, or until an internal temperature of 200F.
Below is the original recipe, as I received it from David Morris, it was Louise Morris’s Recipe
Pizza Dough
7 Cup(s) flour
2 Packages active dry yeast
1/2 Cup(s) sugar
1 Teaspoon(s) salt
2 Cup(s) lukewarm water
1 slightly beaten egg
4 Tablespoon(s) vegetable oil
Mix yeast, sugar, and salt in water. Dissolve well. Add egg, and oil. Knead in flour.
Easter Bread
5 1/2 Pound(s) ham
1 1/2 Pound(s) swiss cheese
2 1/2 stick pepperoni
10 egg
1 Pinch(s) pepper
Requires 1 pizza dough. Cube ham, cheese, and pepperoni. Beat eggs. Stir in above mixture. Add pepper. Let dough rise as directed. Roll dough so it lays over sides of cake pan. Put in mixture in center, laying dough over. Let hole in center to let out grease. Pour grease off or use baster to suck off top.
From: Louise Morris via David Morris
Halved the bread recipe and got 2.7LB sliced ham .8LB swiss cheese, and 2 pepperoni sticks. Only used 1/3 to 1/2 of the ham, and one pepperoni stick. Used most the cheese. Used 5 eggs. Once the dough was rolled out I tried to pick it up and put it in the pan (glass baking dish) and it stretched too thin in some places. Next time roll onto rolling pin and place that way. Also was rolled out too large, but ended up not mattering. I tired to mix the eggs and filling in the crust, didn’t work all that well. Next time figure out how much mixture and then mix eggs and mixture in bowl and put into crust. A smaller pie, maybe A pie pan instead of baking dish would have given the filling a better time to cook in the time that the bread did. Cooked at 350 for 1 hour 15 minutes. The bread was slightly over done, and the filling slightly under done. I’m not sure you could get two pie crust sizes out of 1/2 the dough though. I think this recipe probably makes 3 pie crust sizes in its full size.
Over all not bad, but needs some tweaking for next time. Bread has a good taste and filling is fine too, just need to tweak the size/cooking time.
I sucked the grease out several times during baking, then once slightly cooled, turned over on papertowl to drain out the rest. Seemed to work well. The bread is more bready than it seemed it would be at first. Had a pan underneath in the oven, good thing because some of the egg came out and would have gone in the bottom of the oven.
In an attempt to recreate this in a way that would work and might be easier I combined this recipe with the one for Grandma Kay’s Sausage Bread. I got 1lb Virginia Ham, 1lb Guggisburg swiss, and 1 stick pepperoni. I put all in the food processor but it was a but much for it to process at once. Need to do in stages next time. After it was all about pea size-ish I put in a bowl and mixed in 6 eggs. The eggs coated the mixture but weren’t runny. I used 2 loaves of Rhode’s white bread but the filling was enough for 3 loaves. I either need to cut down on the filling by 1/3 or thaw all three loaves. I rolled each loaf out the size of the silpat and spread 1/3 of the mixture all over it. I then rolled it kind of like a pepperoni roll rather than the calzone style that is the sausage bread. After sealing the seams as best as possible, I baked it at around 330F for 35 minutes. It seems all the way done but the bottom is a bit doughy. Maybe another 5 minutes? The top was getting pretty brown, but now that it cooled it seems like it could have gone longer. Some of the filling leaked out where the seams weren’t sealed but it wasn’t bad. Over all it turned out OK, but the Rohde’s dough isn’t quite the same. I think the original dough is probably the only way to go.
Just realized that I only really attempt this bread at Easter. Not sure why I don’t attempt it other times of the year, but I don’t.
Tonight I made the half batch of the dough recipe above. The only change was I used a whole egg for the half batch instead of half of an egg as would be half. My mother’s pepperoni bread dough recipe is virtually the same as this one, only it called for a whole egg, so I went with it instead of trying to figure out what half an egg was.
Rather than process the ingredients in the food processor as last time, I cut it all into small cubes. I used about 2/3 lb of Guiggisberg Swiss and 2/3 lb of Virginia Ham. I used a whole pepperoni stick. I don’t know whether I realized it before or not because I don’t remember, but the pepperoni sticks we currently have in the deli are wrapped in plastic, but they also have a skin on them. I removed this skin this time, but don’t recall doing that last time. I used 5 eggs and mixed everything together. The recipe calls for a bit of black pepper, but more went in than I wanted. I let the dough rise 1 hour, then split in half, rolled out each half and put half the filling in. I tried to roll it as best as possible but it didn’t seal well and egg leaked out.
I let them rise another half an hour and then I baked for 45 minutes at about 340F on the lower rack of the oven. After baking, I let cool on a wire rack for a while. A lot of the cheese and egg leaked out during baking. I’m not sure what, if anything, to do about that. The bottom got a nice crust on it that I actually kind of like, and the bread is certainly better than using the Rhodes bread. I’m still not sold on the rolled method, mainly because of the loss of ingredients, but as I mentioned, I do like the crust that developed. I’m tempted to purchase some loaf pans, size the dough to fit the pan length wise and roll it up and bake in the pan to try and contain the cheese and egg. The pepper was definitely too much and the pepperoni ratio might be off too, but I can’t tell because of the pepper. Overall, I think this is my best attempt yet.
Edit: The day after, I’m uncertain if I’d change much other than add less pepper. I would hope there might be a way to seal it better, but overall, I like the doneness and the bread to filling ratio. I’m thinking maybe more ham and less pepperoni, possibly to try and mirror the proportions of the original recipe.
I may have finally nailed something I can live with.
I made a half recipe of dough. I started weighing the flour to make it easier than dipping it out by 1/4 cups or whatever is in the flour container. I used 576g of all-purpose flour. The dough was sticky, but turned out well when rolling on a floured surface. Because of how our Deli is now, I have to buy things in 1/2lb pre-sliced packages. I thought I would try 1lb Virginia ham, 1lb Guggisburg Swiss, and 1/2lb pepperoni. Those amounts seemed to work out fine. There seems to be a touch too much ham, but not worth doing anything about. While the dough was rising, I cut the ham and Swiss slices into small squares and the pepperonis into quarters. I mixed with 5 eggs and sprinkled on pepper until I thought it was right. At least 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, possibly 1 entire teaspoon.
I put the oven on 170F and let the dough sit on top of it, so it would have a warm place. It didn’t rise as much as I thought it might, but ultimately, it seemed ok. I may not have used warm enough water to mix the yeast into, and I’m sure the egg brought the temperature down even further.
I rolled out half the dough on a floured board and spread half the filling on top. I somewhat rolled it and threw it into a 5lb foil loaf pan. The pan was 11 3/4″ x 5 5/8″ x 3 3/16″. I then let it rise another half an hour.
The loaf size it produced was just about right. I baked at 340F for 45 minutes, after which I kept checking the internal temperature. It took an additional 15 minutes to get the internal temperature to the recommended 200F.
My only real qualm is that using the pre-sliced ham and pepperoni rather than cubes, the texture is a bit off. The ones on top got leathery, and the ones inside, while not leathery, just seemed to have the wrong texture. It sure was easier than cubing all of that, though, and it sure is nice being able to pick up a couple of packages of stuff and being done with it rather than having to order it or wait on it.