Char says: "The following recipe is ethnically what our family makes for the holiday season, more for New Year's than Xmas. The recipe was handed down through the generations and requires probably more work than most would want to put into it, but it's worth the effort if somebody is interested in ethnic Portguese dishes.

"This is similar to the Hawaiian Sweet Bread you can buy in the market, but with a heavier texture.

"My nana used to make this stuff twice a year, at Easter and at New Year's. She used small bowls to measure the ingredients that she had for years and years, so the measurements reflected are estimates of what she used. She also used to make the dough by hand...at night before she went to bed, covered it with a few blankets and then get up in the middle of the night and pound it down and knead it a few times, then get up at the crack of dawn and bake it. Way too much trouble if you ask me. <G> I've done it with a mixer with a bread hook attachment and it works fine. The key is pounding it down and kneading it a couple of times. Regardless, it's a rather long process, but if you like to make bread, it's well worth the effort. I've even revised the amounts in the receipe and used a bread machine to bake up smaller batches."

In a large bowl, combine 5 lbs of flour and 1 Tbsp. of salt. Mound the flour up and form a "well" in the center.

Add:
12 beaten eggs
1/2 cup cooled cinnamon water (made by boiling water with cinnamon sticks, measure out 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup butter (melted and cooled)
Yeast (nana used to use yeast cakes; she swore the little packages just didn't do the same job...those are sometimes not easy to find, so the packages seem to work fine) 2-3 cakes or packages, dissolved in 1/2 cup very warm water. Let stand for a few minutes before using.
1/2 pint milk
4 cups sugar

Pour all the liquid ingredients to include yeast water in the flour well, mix well and then knead into a ball. Continue to knead until elastic adding flour if needed. Let rise overnight, pounding down every few hours (we usually do about 2-3 kneading cycles...there's alot of yeast in the recipe so it rises fairly quickly).

On the final knead, shape into loaves or round domes. Let rise double. Brush the crust with beaten eggwhites and bake at 350 degres for about an hour or until done (you can tell this by thumping the bread, should have a hollow sound).

At easter time, the bread is usually rolled into cylinder shapes then the shapes are braided. Colored easter eggs are wrapped into the bread before baking.