Easter is a great holiday in many countries. All adults and children know about it. The main attribute of the festive table is rich and beautiful Easter cake, as well as painted eggs. It has long been a tradition to bake such a cake on your own, at home.
Many hostesses can boast of their Easter cake recipes, but it also happens that they are looking for something new and interesting on the net. There are many on the Internet good recipes Easter cakes for every taste. The Povareshka website offers to cook Easter cakes for a bright holiday according to our proven recipes. Your choice 5 the best options cooking Easter cake in the oven.
From the easiest to beginners with step by step photos to complex and interesting recipes. And for those who value their time - a quick cake without kneading dough: convenient and tasty.
Easter cake from yeast dough in milk with dried apricots
Traditional Easter cakes are usually made with raisins. But in this recipe, we suggest replacing it with candied apricots. These fruits are now easy to find from oriental traders who are present at any major bazaar. By the way, after juicy dried apricots, try Easter cakes with other sweets. Perhaps you will like this holiday pastry more than the classic one.
Ingredients:
- 10 g granulated yeast;
- 100 g of sugar;
- 3-4 g of salt;
- 400 g wheat flour;
- egg;
- 150 g of water;
- 200 g candied apricots;
- vanilla to taste;
- 15 g refined oil.
How to cook Easter cake with dried apricots - step by step recipe with photo:
Pour granulated yeast, a pinch of salt and sugar (30 g) into a deep bowl. Then add filtered water. It is important to warm it up to 38 degrees. Mix the dough until smooth, using a regular fork.
Cover the mixture with foil and leave it warm for half an hour. After the specified time, we drive fresh egg and pour a spoonful of vegetable oil.
Kneading the future dough, add the remaining sugar (70 g) with vanilla and sift the flour.
Continuing to mix, enter small cubes candied apricots. At the same time, if necessary, add flour.
Having done elastic dough, form a ball out of it.
At the next stage, we heat the oven by setting 140 degrees. Pour a teaspoon of refined oil into clean forms. We put in each piece of prepared dough. Moreover, it should fill the cylindrical shape to half.
We immediately rearrange the Easter cakes with dried apricots on the wire rack in the oven. Leave for twenty minutes and increase the temperature in the oven to 180 degrees.
We continue baking for a quarter of an hour. During baking in the oven, the Easter cakes will rise and be covered on top with a delicious, beautiful golden crust and grow significantly in size.
After partial cooling, we take out the pastries from the molds and grease the top with jam. Decorate with special powder and put on festive table. Bon appetit!
Alexandrian dough for Easter cake
Today we will cook Easter cake from the most delicious and fragrant Alexandrian dough. What is special about this Easter cake recipe? First of all, pretty in a simple way cooking in two steps. The dough should stand for about 8-12 hours, that is, it is convenient to prepare the dough mixture in the evening and bake in the morning fragrant Easter cakes.
In addition, the Easter cake made from Alexandrian dough has a standard set of products in its composition, the only pastries are cooked on baked milk, which gives an additional flavor to Easter pastries and with the addition of cognac. What is alcohol for, you ask: the use of alcohol in the recipe makes the finished light baking, airy, porous and lush.
Also in the evening, you can pre-steam the raisins in boiling water for a few minutes and dry well.
Products:
- For yeast dough: baked milk- 330 ml;
- butter- 165 g;
- granulated sugar - 350 g;
- fresh (live yeast) - 50 g;
- 4 eggs.
- To prepare the dough: cognac - 30-35 ml. or a couple of tablespoons;
- vanilla sugar- 15 g;
- salt - 1 teaspoon;
- white wheat flour - about 1-1.2 kg;
- candied fruits and raisins - about 300 g.
Step-by-step recipe with a photo of the Alexandrian dough cake:
Fragrant alexandrian dough cooked on dough, for this we add granulated sugar to warm milk and fresh yeast stir until yeast dissolves. You should get a homogeneous gruel. Whisk vigorously in a separate bowl. raw eggs and pour the resulting egg mass into the milk.
Then add the last ingredient to the mixture - softened butter (take it out of the refrigerator first). Stir the dough again with a whisk until smooth. You can use a mixer to make the task easier. This is how the mixture of pieces of butter turns out.
The dough for the Alexandrian dough is ready. Tighten the container with foil or cover with a cotton towel. Now leave yeast dough in a warm place for 8-12 hours. You can do this at night.
Next, add vanilla sugar, cognac. Stir again and begin to sift the flour in parts. It is good to beat the dough until smooth. At the end, when the dough for Easter cakes is already very thick, add candied fruits and raisins powdered with flour.
Add the remaining flour again and continue to knead the dough on the table with your hands. First with flour for a couple of minutes, then remove the rest of the flour from the table. Lubricate hands and work surface vegetable oil and continue kneading the dough. We cover the finished Alexandrian dough with a clean cotton towel and leave it warm for 1.5 hours.
After the specified time, we distribute the dough into molds. If you have a kitchen scale at home, then it is better to distribute it evenly, if you have all the same shapes. At the same time, we fill each Easter baking dish with dough by one third.
On a note! What is the best Easter cake pan to use? Paper molds are very easy to use, they do not need to be lubricated and they are already processed. You can also bake cookies in silicone molds or iron. But, it should be borne in mind that the latter must be lubricated with vegetable oil so that the baked goods in the oven do not burn.
Next, cover the Easter cakes in molds with a towel or film and let them stand for 40-60 minutes. During this time, the dough will rise to the edge of the baking dish. Then place in a warm oven and increase the baking temperature to 180 degrees.
After 25 minutes, reduce to 170 degrees and bake Easter cakes until cooked. Readiness of baking can be checked with a dry wooden stick or match.
The total baking time for the Easter cake from Alexandria dough is from 35 to 60 minutes, depending on the oven. When ready, take the cakes out of the oven and cool directly in the molds. We decorate the cooled pastries at our discretion.
A simple recipe for a quick Easter cake from curd dough without yeast
Easter cake without yeast is easy and quick to prepare. The dough does not require kneading, which is very convenient. This Easter cake recipe without kneading is simply necessary for those who do not like to work with yeast dough and will be especially useful for those housewives who do not have time to cook pastries. Such a cake is also baked quickly, but it turns out as tasty and tender as yeast.
Raisins should first be soaked in boiling water for one and a half to two hours and dried.
Products:
- 300 g - sifted wheat flour;
- 130 ml - milk;
- 100 g - sugar;
- two tablespoons - potato starch;
- 1.5 table. spoons - baking powder;
- 2 eggs;
- a pinch of salt;
- 100 g of raisins and candied fruits;
- 60 ml - vegetable oil:
- 180 g - not sour curd;
- a sachet of vanillin;
- optionally - the zest of one lemon, a little cinnamon, cardamom and turmeric.
Cooking:
Mix all dry ingredients in a suitable container: baking powder, starch, a pinch of salt and vanilla. Break the eggs in a separate bowl and mix them with sugar. Beat with a whisk or mixer.
Combine with the dry mixture prepared earlier and stir until smooth. Add milk, cottage cheese and vegetable oil. Mix all products well.
On a note! Vegetable oil is added to the dough so that the cake does not get stale, and the presence of cottage cheese will make the pastry more tender.
Next, mix the sifted flour with spices (cardamom, turmeric and cinnamon). And add to the bowl with the dough in portions, continuing to stir. When the dough thickens, add the lemon zest, candied fruits and raisins. And stir again. The dough for a quick cake should be thick.
Prepare baking molds. You can lay parchment paper in molds or grease the walls with vegetable oil.
Fill each prepared mold 2⁄3 full to leave room for "rise" since baking powder is present.
Put the Easter cakes in a preheated oven to 170-180 degrees. Bake 40-50 minutes. When ready, remove from the oven and let cool in the mold.
Custard cake for Easter with raisins in the oven
Products:
- wheat flour - 400 g;
- milk - 80 ml. for the dough and 4 tbsp. for breeding yeast;
- dry yeast - 40 g;
- 4 eggs
- granulated sugar - 100 g;
- butter, slightly melted - 50 g;
- a handful of raisins, some crushed walnuts;
- spices - vanilla, cardamom;
- a tablespoon of cognac.
Step-by-step instructions for making Easter cake from choux pastry in the oven:
Preparing this pastry is quite simple. Boil the milk and remove it from the stove. Add a little sifted flour and stir thoroughly until all lumps disappear. After that, cool the resulting mixture. Further diluted in a small amount warm milk yeast and put them aside for now.
Meanwhile, separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs. Add butter and sugar to egg yolks. Mix everything thoroughly until smooth. Add a little salt to the proteins, literally a pinch and beat with a whisk or mixer.
Add the previously prepared yeast to the flour and milk mixture. Mix and leave the dough to brew for 20-30 minutes.
After the specified time, mix into the prepared dough with a mass of yolks, mix. Then add beaten egg whites to the batter. And mix thoroughly until smooth. Leave in a warm place for about one hour.
Divide the dough into several pieces and put into molds. Leave for an hour in a warm place. When the dough has increased in size, put in the oven, preheated to 180 gr. for 40-45 minutes.
Remove the finished Easter cakes from the oven and cool for 10-15 minutes. Pull out of the form. And decorate with icing and Easter sprinkles at your discretion.
Classic Easter cake from yeast dough on sour cream
To prepare such a festive miracle, you need the following ingredients:
- 1 cup warm fat milk per 200 ml;
- a pack of butter weighing 200 g;
- 100 g of good fat sour cream;
- 5 chicken eggs, where 1 - 2 proteins can be taken for greasing Easter cake;
- 2 - 2.5 faceted glasses of sugar, the amount can be adjusted to taste;
- a couple of pinches of salt;
- 1 sachet of vanillin or a small spoon vanilla sugar;
- 60 g pressed yeast or 20 g dry;
- 100 g of any dried fruit of your choice;
- 600 - 700 g of wheat flour.
How to bake a classic yeast cake in the oven:
For best results, all ingredients for cooking should be at the same temperature, not from the refrigerator. It is better to put everything on the table in a couple of hours.
In a deep container, combine yeast, a quarter of all sugar, warm milk and 10 - 12 large tablespoons of wheat flour. The dough for sourdough should be similar in consistency to dough for pancakes. So leave for a while warm, covered with a towel, until the dough grows 2 times.
Eggs at this time should be beaten with the rest of the sugar in the foam. Vanillin and salt can be added to them.
Combine beaten eggs, melted and cooled butter with sour cream with the finished dough. Stir. Add most of the flour, leaving about 3 to 4 tablespoons. The flour should definitely be sifted so that airy pastries come out.
Knead the dough, which will gather well into a lump, but will still be a little sticky. Leave warm to approach for an hour and a half.
Dried fruits, such as raisins or dried apricots, it is better to pour boiling water for 10-15 minutes. So they are washed and softened. After drain and dry. Add a couple of teaspoons of flour from the rest and mix.
Put the dough on the table, lower it and stir in the dried fruits, adding the remaining flour if necessary. Ready dough on Easter cake should remain soft, but should no longer stick to hands and the table. Let it rise again for 40 minutes.
Pour the dough into a baking dish or divide into small molds, filling halfway. Leave to stand until the oven heats up to 200 degrees. Bake for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on size.
Release the finished cake from the molds and leave to cool on the table. Decorate as desired. So it turns out a rich classic cake with dried fruits. It is very high-calorie and fatty, the taste only benefits from this.
Video: How to make icing for Easter cake so that it does not crumble, stick and crumble
Homemade cakes are always tastier than store-bought ones, and baking Easter cake is not only a matter of honor, but also of tradition. However, the fear of failing gastronomically in such an important event paralyzes the will and desire, and we again and again go to the supermarket. However, any phobia can and should be fought, and it is especially easy to do this when there is a reliable and proven recipe in service.
Easter cake baking has always been a sacrament. They baked Easter cakes on Thursdays, and on Saturday they consecrated them in the church. But despite the duration of preparations, every housewife can make the perfect cake. And for this it is not necessary to go through long trial and error. It is enough to know the basic "secrets" and the verified recipe.
Don't skimp on products! Kulich is a special dish that we prepare only once a year. Choose good flour, high-quality butter and do not be too lazy to get live pressed yeast (in the store they are most often sold in the dairy products department, on the “cold shelf”). If you still didn’t find any and bought dry yeast, then use it at the rate of 15 g of yeast for every 500 g of flour.
Observe temperature regime. Milk should be room temperature, butter warm (not hot).
To knead the dough, do not be lazy to sift the flour so that it is saturated with oxygen and becomes “airy”.
It is better to beat the whites and yolks for Easter cake separately, then it will turn out more magnificent.
Knead the dough in a plastic bowl. In metal, especially in aluminum, it will not rise.
Remember that the dough for Easter cakes does not tolerate drafts and temperature changes, so during cooking and baking, the window in the kitchen should be kept closed. Our great-grandmothers even believed that to spoil tender dough even loud noises can, so it’s better that your home is cozy, quiet and calm. In any case, the noise and turmoil do not contribute to the process.
According to a culinary sign, in order for the dough to turn out tender, it needs to be kneaded exactly 100 times. However, no one expects such fanaticism from a modern woman who spends eight hours a day at work, and this is not necessary. It is enough to remember the basic principle: the finished dough should not stick to your hands.
An invariable component of Easter cakes is dried fruits, but you should not abuse them either. The total weight of fruit additives should not exceed 300-350 g (when using 1 kg of flour).
Traditionally, kulich is baked in tall cylindrical forms, and today culinary specialists have a wide choice. In stores you can find different variations - from classic metal to modern silicone. The latter is the most convenient, since baking from such forms is easily removed and does not burn. If there are no special molds, you can bake Easter cakes in ordinary dishes - saucepans and even mugs (the main thing is that the dishes do not have plastic parts). And some housewives bake cupcakes and Easter cakes the old fashioned way, in ordinary tin cans from under the compotes (the bottom and walls of the jar are laid out oiled parchment paper).
If you are going to bake a cake in gas oven, then it is recommended to put a container of water on the bottom tray. Then the bottom of the cake is guaranteed not to burn. And so that the top does not burn when the cake is reddened, it must be covered with a circle of paper moistened with water.
You can check the readiness of the Easter cake, like any other pie, by simply piercing it with a match or a toothpick. If it is dry, then the cake is ready.
Do not open the oven again during the baking process. If you slam the door abruptly, the cake may settle, losing its splendor.
The finished cake must be removed from the mold and put on a wire rack so that the bottom does not get wet.
Traditionally, it is customary to cover Easter cake sugar icing, which is done according to the meringue principle, that is, with the participation of a mixer. If you do not have such a device at hand, then Easter baking you can just sprinkle powdered sugar, after lubricating the top with yolk.
Easter cake recipe
Ingredients
for the test:
500 g premium flour
250 ml milk
25 g live yeast (or 1 sachet dry)
100 g butter
3 eggs
100-150 g sugar
150 g raisins
1/2 teaspoon vanilla sugar
a pinch of salt
for glaze:
1 egg
50 g sugar
Cooking
1. Dissolve the yeast previously crushed with a spoon in warm milk. Add half of the sifted flour and mix well. Put in a warm place (you can put a bowl of dough in a container with warm water) and cover with a towel or cling film. The dough should double in volume - it will take about 30-40 minutes.
2. While the dough is coming up, we are engaged in butter and eggs. The oil should be put in a warm place so that it becomes very soft (it is best to leave it overnight at room temperature). Separate whites from yolks. Rub the yolks thoroughly with sugar and a spoonful of vanilla sugar. Add a pinch of salt to the proteins and beat them into foam.
3. Add the yolks to the approached dough and mix. Add softened butter and continue mixing. Then add egg whites and mix again. Sift the remaining flour into the resulting mass and knead the dough. Cover with foil and put in a warm place. Let rise well (this usually takes at least an hour). At this time, it is better not to disturb the dough, do not open the film, otherwise it may fall off.
4. Soak raisins in warm water for 10-15 minutes, then drain the water and dry the raisins with a towel. Add raisins to the risen dough (at this stage, you can also put lemon peel, candied fruits or dried apricots), mix and put the dough back to rise.
5. Punch down the dough. Lubricate the form with butter or vegetable oil and put the dough on 1/3 of the height of the form. Cover with foil. Thus, the dough should rise three times: the first time immediately after kneading, the second - together with dried fruits and the third time already in shape.
6. When the dough takes 3/4 of the form, it must be placed in an oven preheated to 100 degrees and baked for 10 minutes. Then increase the temperature to 180 degrees and bake until cooked. Easter cake with a height of 11 cm and a diameter of 17 cm is cooked for 35 minutes: 10 minutes at a temperature of 100 degrees and 25 at a temperature of 180 degrees. In a wider form, the cake needs to be baked for at least an hour.
7. Remove the finished cake from the oven and cover with a towel for about 7-10 minutes. During this time, prepare the glaze. To do this, you need to separate the protein from the yolk. Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt. Then add sugar and beat the mass until stable peaks (when the mass no longer flows from the whisk).
Remove the cake from the mold and place on a towel or let stand on a wire rack. Brush with frosting and sprinkle confectionery topping. Easter cake can be decorated with candied fruits, nuts or pieces of marmalade.
As promised, today I will describe my recipe for Easter cake and the process of its preparation. Did it on my own for the first time, so culinary process preceded by a daily "course of theory".
After reviewing more than a dozen top articles and reading about a thousand comments, I chose the most common option and sketched out a plan of action for myself. But, as usual (how many people - so many recipes), I had to adjust it a little.
Below I will describe and show everything in detail.
Cooking Easter cake - step by step recipe
Ingredients
For test:
- flour - 1,400 g;
- milk - 400 ml (2 tablespoons of 200 ml);
- fresh yeast - 50 g (dry, I think, 14 grams);
- eggs - 6 pcs;
- butter - 200 g;
- sugar - 400 g (2 tbsp. 200 ml each);
- raisins - 300 g;
- vanilla sugar - 10 g (1 sachet);
- cognac - 1 tbsp. l.;
For glaze:
- powdered sugar - 1 tbsp.;
- protein - 1 pc.;
- lemon juice - 1 tbsp. l.
How to make dough
Of course, it was scary to take on such a responsible task for the first time, I was tormented by doubts: would it turn out lush, soft air cakes, as you would like. But until you do it, you won’t know, so I tuned in to the right “wave”, kicked everyone out of the kitchen, locked the parrot, slammed the window, the doors and started.
The first thing I lit in a gas oven little light, closed the door - let it heat up and heat the kitchen. From the oven, the surface of the stove will also become warm, I will put dough and dough on it. Immediately put the oil on the stove - it will gradually heat up and soften well.
1. We measure out 400 ml of milk and put it in a bowl on fire. We heat until, having tried with a finger, we feel good warmth, but not to be hot. 
2. We crumble yeast into milk. I recommend Lviv yeast to Ukrainian residents - I use it all the time, everything works out great.
Then I realized in time that I took a small bowl and quickly poured the whole mixture into a cauldron, where I usually cook. 
3. Add 2 tbsp. l. sugar, stir until slightly dissolved. Sift through a fine sieve 4 tbsp. flour. 
4. Stir well with a spoon to make a slightly viscous dough dough. 
5. We cover the cauldron with a towel and put it on the stove (it is already warm). While the dough is coming up, prepare the muffin: we separate the yolks from the proteins. 
6. Add the remaining sugar, vanilla sugar to the yolks and grind until the mixture turns slightly white. 
7. Beat the whites with a pinch of salt with a mixer into a stable foam. 
8. Opara, meanwhile, came up (more than doubled) and slightly settled - it means ready. It took 30-40 minutes. 
9. Add yolks to it and mix. 
10. Then put softened, almost liquid butter. 
11. Next, pour in a spoonful of alcohol (cognac, rum) and mix again. 
12. Add whipped whites and once again very gently and thoroughly mix with a spoon from top to bottom. 
13. Add flour and start kneading the dough.
Initially, the Easter cake recipe called for only 1 kg of flour. I conscientiously weighed this kilogram on the scales. But, when I sifted the remaining amount of flour into the dough and kneaded the dough, it turned out to be too liquid, you can’t knead it with your hands. I had to rely on my intuition.
I added another 200 g of flour, after kneading the dough turned out, with which you can already work with your hands. It took another 200 g of flour to sprinkle the table and subsequent dusting. At the end, I weighed what was left of the two-kilogram bag - about 600 g.
Perhaps I have such flour, and you will get a different amount.
14. Put the dough on a floured table and continue to knead. 
The goal was this: to make the dough smooth and soft. As soon as I felt that if I added a little more flour, the dough would stop sticking to my hands, I stopped adding flour. Let it be sticky, it does not matter, you need to periodically lubricate the table and hands with vegetable oil - and there will be order, but the Easter cake will turn out to be airy. I continue to knead with my hands - a total of about half an hour. 
The dough is well saturated with oxygen. And here is the sign of readiness that I noticed at the end: with a sharp pressure, the dough resists, springs like a rubber ball, although it is very soft and does not hold the shape of a ball on the table, slowly spreading.
15. Lubricate a clean cauldron with vegetable oil, put a ball of dough in it, also lubricate it with oil and leave it on the stove to rise, wrapped in towels. 
16. We sort out the raisins, there are enough tails and just garbage in it. 
17. Pour boiling water for 10-15 minutes. 
18. We strain the water, pour the raisins on a towel, cover with the edges so that all the moisture is absorbed, and the raisins are as dry as possible.
If desired, candied fruits, nuts, dried apricots can be added to the Easter cake recipe. I considered it redundant. 
19. After an hour, the dough came up very well. 
20. We spread it on a table dusted with flour, knead it with our hands into a cake and scatter half of the raisins in a thin layer. 
21. We fold the edges with an envelope. Knead again with your hands into a cake and scatter the remaining raisins. Once again, fold the envelope and knead a little with your hands. 
22. The second time we put the dough in a cauldron to rise. 
Preparing molds and baking Easter cakes
1. While the dough is “growing”, prepare the baking dishes. For small cakes, I bought special paper molds, and for a large cake I took a Teflon detachable. 
You can bake in any metal utensils: in mugs, saucepans. People use tall tin cans after removing the labels and plastic covers.
For ease of extraction, the walls and bottom of such dishes are lined with oiled parchment paper. Cylinders are also rolled up from the paper itself, the bottom is slapped with a stapler and baked. In general, there would be a desire, but you can think of something to bake in.
2. Lubricate all forms with a brush with melted butter.
I’m not overjoyed with the test - after an hour it rose remarkably again. 
3. I kneaded it a little on the table, tear off the necessary pieces, roll them into balls and lay them out so that the forms are filled by about one third of the volume. 
4. We arrange the forms immediately on the baking sheet so as not to touch them anymore, cover with a towel, let stand until the dough rises almost to the brim (20-30 minutes). 
5. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. We put a baking sheet with water at the bottom (I also did it when I baked). We also spray the oven with water from a spray bottle and, finally, put the Easter cakes to bake. Do not open the door for the first 10 minutes.
Some of my Easter cakes stood close to the walls so that they baked evenly, I turned them periodically. After half an hour, I sprayed the oven again with water.
Smaller cakes began to brown later than large ones (they are lower, and the heat from the ceiling reaches them less). And the largest one almost rested on the ceiling and soon began to burn from the top sheet of metal.
I even had to cover it with a circle of parchment soaked in water. As a result, all the Easter cakes were baked at the same time - in about an hour. When pierced with a wooden toothpick, there was no dough left on it - a sure sign of readiness. 
I don’t even mention the fact that the aroma of baking was unimaginable, my wife even woke up. But Easter cakes cannot be eaten right away, they must be skillfully cooled and allowed to “ripen”. They are immediately very tender, ready to break into pieces and deform under strong pressure.
Therefore, it is best to put them on something soft, on a barrel, cover with a towel and periodically turn, this is especially true for large Easter cakes - they can deform under their own weight.
When they become warm, Easter cakes can be removed from metal molds, paper forms you can leave and decorate. 
How to make egg white frosting and decorate
1. To prepare the glaze, beat one protein into foam. Without ceasing to beat, gradually add a glass of powdered sugar and a tablespoon lemon juice. It turned out such a mass. 
2. We cover Easter cakes with it, decorate with sprinkles and decorative flowers.
There were nine Easter cakes in total: two with a diameter of 7 cm; two - 11 cm; four - 9 cm, and the main Easter cake - 13 cm. 
I started at 5:00 pm and went to bed at 3:00 am. Made 220 photos! If you do not take into account the time for photographing, you can manage in 6-8 hours.
Tired - no words, but what a pleasure, friends! The pleasure from the process and the result, from the realization that I did it myself, at such moments the soul sings and even fatigue is pleasant (probably I am a workaholic). And it turned out the way I wanted - the pastries are lush, airy, soft and incomparably tasty (I learned this already in the morning). 
The next day, my neighbor grandmother caught me on the landing: “Seryozha, the neighbors say that you are doing some kind of test at night - everything is flashing in the kitchen. The apartment, by any chance, you will not blow up? I laughed and reassured her that the flash was flashing when photographing. I thought to myself: “Who was itching to watch my windows at 2 a.m.?” The neighbor, in turn, froze with her mouth open (what can be photographed in the kitchen from the evening until two in the morning?). On that they parted.
For you, dear readers, I also have everything for today, share your impressions, if someone writes their recipe for Easter cake, I will be glad. My parents bake Easter cakes in a bread machine, health does not allow kneading the dough with your hands, you can. Also recently I did cottage cheese easter, was also satisfied.
The dough for Easter cakes is rather capricious, it does not like a rude attitude, haste and fuss. It is necessary not only to follow the recipe, but also to approach this process with a good mood.
Our grandmothers believed that when Easter cakes were baked in the house, one should not make noise, talk loudly, and even more so scold. Extremely positive attitude and bright thoughts. I don't know how it is for anyone, but these rules work for me :)
Dough
It is necessary to prepare the dough for Easter cakes exclusively in a warm place without the slightest draft, because. it does not like cold and sudden temperature changes. You need to take care of the temperature in the kitchen in advance, close the windows in advance if the room is ventilated. The ideal temperature for kneading dough is about 25 degrees, and for raising the dough you need about 30-35 degrees. Heat must be distributed evenly.
Preparation of ingredients
How delicious Easter cakes will be depends on what products you use. We prepare such festive pastries once a year, so don't skimp on quality butter, flour and other ingredients. By the way, All foods must also be at room temperature. so take them out of the fridge ahead of time.
It often happens that the process is already underway, but forgot something, something else needs to be measured, grated zest, etc. Not to create chaos prepare all the ingredients in advance according to the list and put it on the table. This way you can be sure that you won't forget anything.
flour must be dried in advance, and before adding to the dough be sure to sift, better twice.
Yeast for kneading it is better to use “live”, they speed up the fermentation process. If you prefer dry yeast, it is best to choose active yeast.
Oil for the dough, you need to melt it in advance and let it brew, thanks to which the Easter cakes will be more tender.
Proteins from yolks you need to separate very carefully so that they subsequently beat well.
batch
For the dough to rise well, Do not put all the ingredients at once, it is better to introduce them in several doses. This also applies to additives (raisins, nuts, candied fruits) - it is better to add them before laying out the dough in forms.
It should be borne in mind that raisins and candied fruits must be dry, so they need to be blotted with a napkin and, if necessary, lightly sprinkled with flour. It is better to grind spicy additives for Easter cake in a coffee grinder and sift through a sieve.
Success good Easter cakes also depends on how the dough will be well kneaded. It should be dense, smooth, in no case loose, like usual. butter dough, otherwise Easter cakes will “float”.
The cake dough should lag behind the hands, so the kneading process is not fast. But you should not overdo it either, otherwise the dough will turn out to be tight, and Easter cakes from such a dough will be heavy and knocked down. Such cakes quickly become stale and dry. Naturally, we rely on the recipe and pour the indicated amount of flour, but often you need to look at the bun and adjust the amount of flour yourself.
The dough for Easter cakes should be suitable at least two times, and ideally three: dough, basic approach after kneading, proofing in forms. It is better not to put the dough where the heat comes from the bottom up, otherwise it will not fit well.
Cooked by different recipes The dough fits in different ways, so read carefully how much dough is recommended to put in the form. Most often, the form is filled by a third, as the dough will fit and grow during the baking process.
It is believed that molds for Easter cakes should be narrow and high, but modern housewives use any form they like.
Forms must be prepared in advance. For silicone molds, I lightly grease the bottom and walls with vegetable oil, but I line the split ones with parchment paper.
Baking
In order for the cakes to rise evenly, you need insert into the middle of the thin wooden skewer and cook cake with her. It is also convenient to check the readiness of the cake.
If the cake is not baked, and the top starts to brown too much, you need to put oiled paper or parchment moistened with water on it. Shortly before the Easter cakes are ready, the paper must be removed.
Easter cakes need to be placed already in a preheated oven, but there are recipes for Easter cakes that are put in a cold oven, and the dough rises as it warms up.
Cookies should be baked at a moderate temperature., and by the end of baking it is better to reduce it. It is very useful when baking Easter cake to put a mug of water in the oven.
Never open the oven otherwise the cake will settle.
The baking time of Easter cakes directly depends not only on the temperature in the oven, but also on the size of the molds.:
- up to 1 kg - about 30 minutes,
- about 1 kg - about 1 hour,
- 1.5 kg or more - about 1.5 hours.
Cooling Easter cakes is best on the side, periodically turning the Easter cake. This helps the product to cool evenly and not wrinkle.
Particularly tender Easter cakes can be cooled directly in the forms, while removing the bottom and unfastening the clasp detachable form. The air will circulate in the form, but the sides will not be pressed against the grate. Easter cakes in silicone molds can be slightly moved and also laid on their side.
If the Easter cakes are denser, then you need to let them cool down a little, and then be sure to get them out of the mold and cool without it. Do not try to take a very hot cake out of the mold., there is a high probability that you will get only a part of it. Previously, our grandmothers cooled Easter cakes on downy feather beds and pillows, which indicates a careful attitude to this pastry.
10 rules for baking Easter cakes
- The flour must be dry, necessarily sifted through a fine sieve.
- If we replace fresh purchased yeast with dry ones, then we take from 10 to 20 g of yeast per 0.5 kg of flour, dissolving them in milk (taken in addition to the norm according to the recipe).
- We start the dough in a room where the air temperature is at least 25 ° C. We preheat the oven in advance.
- Knead the dough and beat it until it pulls away from your hands and the sides of the bowl or pan.
- To rise, put the dough in a warm, but not hot place (for example, not on a warm stove, not on a battery, etc.). It should come up at least three times: in the dough, when the muffin is added and already in the form. Any breeze, draft, noise, slamming the door - the dough will hopelessly settle.
- Kulich is good with spices. But you can't go overboard with them either. Here are the optimal norms: for 0.5 kg of flour - 10-12 cardamom grains, 5 cm of vanilla sticks (or vanillin powder), zest of three lemons. Zest, vanilla, cardamom grains must first be crushed with sugar. Wash the raisins, soak to swell, and roll in flour.
- We grease the cake molds with oil and cover them with clean oiled paper.
- a) if you want the cake to be light and fluffy, fill the mold halfway;
b) prefer more dense and satisfying - fill 3/4 of the volume. - Lubricate the top of the cake with an egg beaten with water and butter (0.5 tbsp each). We do not touch the sides: the eggs stick together the dough and do not let it rise!
- In order for the cake to rise evenly, you need to stick a sharply sharpened torch into the middle, put it in the oven with it. After an hour and a half (depending on the size of the cake), we take out the splinter: if the dough sticks to it, bake further, if the splinter is dry, it's ready !!!
The whole cooking process Easter cakes should be done in good spirits. Try the readiness of the cake with a thinly pointed splinter or a wooden barbecue stick. Sprinkle the top of the cake with icing sugar, cinnamon or other baking decorations. Children's Easter cakes can be baked in faceted glasses - they withstand the high temperature of the oven.
Easter cake dough is quite difficult to prepare - a lot of muffin is laid in it (eggs, butter, sugar), so they cook it in several steps, literally nursing, nurturing the dough, protecting it from drafts, wrapping it warmly.
The dough for Easter cakes, as a rule, is closed on the night from Thursday to Friday, they bake almost the whole day on Friday, and on the night from Saturday to Sunday they consecrate Easter cakes. The finished dough used to be laid out in special detachable metal forms, carefully and abundantly greased with softened (but not liquid) oil. In the conditions of today's city apartments, instead of forms, you can use metal thin-walled pans of various sizes, processed, respectively, with cans from various canned food, also pre-calcining them in the oven and lubricating them with plenty of oil.
To make Easter cakes lush and airy, a piece of fermented raw dough in such a volume that it occupies no more than 1/2 of the form, but not less than 1/3 of its height. The form with the Easter cake is carefully placed in the oven when the dough in it rises flush with the edges. Bake in a medium-heated oven, checking the readiness of the cake with a pointed wooden hairpin: if there is no raw dough left on the hairpin, the cake is ready. Carefully monitor that the top crust of the cake does not burn.
Strongly toasted, but not yet completely baked, the Easter cake is covered with well moistened cold water a sheet of thick white paper or foil. When baking Easter cake, the oven door is opened and closed very carefully: you need to know that from any, even a small push, airy Easter cake can settle.
Basic requirements for products for classic Easter cake
Required main products or ingredients of Easter cake: flour, yeast, sugar, eggs, butter, milk or cream. No less important are additional products: vanilla, raisins, nuts or almonds, candied fruits.
The flour should be of the highest quality and as dry as possible. Before preparing the dough, sift the flour twice through the most frequent sieve so that it becomes more airy.
Yeast must be fresh - dry and stale are not suitable.
Sugar is best taken fine (white refined), containing the least amount of impurities.
Butter, milk or cream, eggs must be fresh and of good quality.
Present classic Easter cake there must be flavoring additives - raisins, candied fruits, candied dry lemon or orange peel. These ingredients are obligatory in Easter cake: they can be somehow replaced (for example, raisins can be replaced with candied fruit or almonds), but they cannot be left out at all.
Easter cake dough is often tinted with saffron. You don’t need to put saffron in the dough if the egg yolks are bright orange (by the way, for a brighter color, egg yolks can be sprinkled with salt and left overnight), although saffron gives Easter cake not only color, but also a specific aroma.
Spices are also necessarily added to the Easter cake - vanilla, cardamom or others to taste, but in moderation and always one of several, giving a predominant smell so that the spices cannot clog the special "cake" aroma and its characteristic taste.
The quality of Easter cake depends not so much on its composition, but on the technology of its preparation, on its processing.
With all varieties of Easter cakes, the main stages of preparing the dough remain the same and you need to know them so that the recipe for making Easter cake does not seem too complicated. After all, Easter cake is not prepared so often, and its preparation is not so cheap today as to make the cake tasteless.
The kulichny dough is kneaded as long as possible, so that it completely lags behind the hands and the table.
The dough should come up three times, the first time the dough comes up, the second time - when all the products are added, the third time - when the dough is laid out in molds.
Easter cake loves warmth and does not like drafts, Easter cakes should be suitable in a warm place at a temperature of 30-45 o C.
The dough for the Easter cake should not be "liquid (the Easter cakes will spread and be flat) and should not be thick (the Easter cakes will be too heavy and stale quickly).
The dough should be of such density that it can be cut with a knife, and it does not stick to the knife, and when dividing Easter cakes, it would not be necessary to add flour.
The form for baking Easter cakes is only half filled with dough, allowed to rise to 3/4 of the height of the form, and then placed in the oven for baking.
Easter cake ready for baking is smeared with an egg beaten with 1 tbsp. l. water, and butter, sprinkle with nuts, coarse sugar and breadcrumbs.
Easter cake is baked in a humidified oven (for this, a container with water is placed at the bottom) at a temperature of 200-220 ° C.
In order for the cake to rise evenly, a wooden stick is stuck into its middle before baking. After a certain time, the stick is taken out, if it is dry, the cake is ready.
Easter cake weighing less than 1 kg is baked for 30 minutes, weighing 1 kg - 45 minutes, weighing 1.5 kg - 1 hour, weighing 2 kg - 1.5 hours.
