Portuguese Sweet Bread

This is one of my all time favorite foods that I can only get when I go home so I finally learned how to make it.

Portuguese Sweet Bread

12 eggs (room temperature) plus 1 for egg wash
4 cups sugar
3 yeast packets
2 Tbs Sugar
½ cup warm water (100º-110º)
1 Tbs salt
5.5 lb sifted flour
½ lb butter
½ lb shortening (19 Tbs)
3 cups milk
1 cup water

- Mix yeast with warm water and 2 Tbs of sugar to bloom
- On the stove melt shortening and butter
- On the stove heat milk and water to scalding
- Combine eggs and sugar with a mixer
- Mix half the flour into the eggs and sugar
- Gradually add butter, milk, yeast and salt
- Alternate flour, butter and milk
- Knead dough until hands start to get clean, and the dough sticks together and pulls away from the bowl
- Sprinkle a large bowl with flour and the top of the dough
- Cover with plastic wrap, put in a warm spot and cover with a blanket
- Let rise for 4 hours or until atleast doubled
- Knead again
- Grease loaf pans
- Separate dough into loaves, each loaf should have about enough dough to fill a cereal bowl
- Let rise again in a war, spot for 1-2 hours in the loaf pans
- Preheat oven to 250º
- Brush loaves with 1 slightly beaten egg
- Bake loaves for 30 minutes
- Increase temperature to 300º and bake until golden



Notes: I make a half batch using about 9 or 10 cups of flour. I used my mixer to knead the dough most of the way and then continued to do it on the counter with my hands. For my warm spot I turned the oven on and set my bowl/pan by the oven to heat the dough and make it rise. I also had to raise the oven temp to 325º to get a golden color on the bread. You may just want to skip the 300º and go straight to 325º for about 10 minutes so it doesn’t dry out too much.