Baba...Ukrainian Easter Bread (for bread machine)

Submitted by Anita McIntosh

Ingredients

½ cup orange juice at room temp.
½ cup milk at room temp
½ tsp. Spanish saffron (brewed in 1/2 cup boiled water...let steep for at least 2 hrs...best if done over night)
Rinse each of the above containers with a little water after you add to machine.

3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs beaten
3 Tbsp. butter, cut in small pieces
1 tsp. vanilla
½ tsp. salt
1 pkg. and 1 heaping tsp. of dry yeast
5 level cups of flour
1 cup raisins

Directions

Follow bread dough instructions for manual and sweet bread...add raisins when the machine beeps. If it does not beep to let you know, add a few minutes before the machine stops kneading. Let rise in bread machine. When it has risen to top of machine, remove, make into loaves. Put in 3 regular size foil bread pans. Let rise till double in bulk. Bake in 350 degrees oven for 30 - 35 minutes or until done. Remove from oven, brush with butter. Remove from pans. Let cool on rack -DELICIOUS.


Notes: The original recipe for Baba was given to me by my Mother. Her recipe was a little of this, a little of that, feel dough if you need more flour and so on. Well, when you are not a cook, like she was, this does not work. lol. I made up a recipe, let her taste it, she thought it was delicious. That was long before bread machines. Now, I made up a revised and much easier recipe with the bread machine and it tastes JUST LIKE MOM'S. Well, not quite like hers but ALMOST. She would be proud of me.