Tsoureki

A soft, rich Greek sweet bread, usually braided, flavored with mahlab and mastic and baked for Easter.

Tsoureki: A shiny braided golden-brown sweet bread loaf sprinkled with sliced almonds, sliced to show a soft, stringy, feathery crumb
  • Traditional and regional desserts
  • Armenia, Greece, Turkey

Also called: Nan e gisu, tsureki

Tsoureki is made from an enriched yeast dough with milk, butter, eggs and sugar, perfumed with ground mahlab (the kernel of a cherry pit) and mastic resin, and often orange zest. The dough is long-kneaded and slowly risen to create a stringy, feathery crumb that pulls apart in strands.

It is usually shaped into a three-strand braid, brushed with egg wash and sprinkled with sliced almonds or sesame seeds; at Easter a red-dyed egg is often tucked into the braid. Related breads are baked in Armenia, Turkey and across the Balkans under other names. It is eaten plain with coffee and is now sold year-round.

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Sources

Written by VanillaGoods in our own words from these sources. Last reviewed October 15, 2026.

  1. Easter in Greece, Greek National Tourism Organisation (Visit Greece)
  2. Baking Traditional Tsoureki Bread: Greek Braided Bread, Kennesaw State University, Aegis Digital Museum