Easter cakes the easy way. How to bake Easter cake - recipes for Easter. How to make glaze from egg whites and sugar syrup

Kulich - originally Russian National dish, which everyone prepares once a year on the Easter holiday. Easter cake dough is made differently in different families. Some people make the dough with kefir, some add cinnamon or vanilla, and some prefer to enjoy lemon aroma, which adds citrus zest to baked goods. But before you start cooking this sweet Easter dish, it’s worth finding out why it was so loved by our ancestors.

The history of Easter cake

Kulich is truly a Christian dish, although the first mentions of this pastry belong to the ancient Slavs. With the advent of Orthodoxy, Easter cakes began to be baked for Easter, and this baking represented church bread.

Nevertheless, certain superstitions regarding the preparation of Easter cakes have been preserved in Christian society. Thus, it used to be considered a good omen to lay out pieces of blessed baked goods in the field. Farmers believed that this would contribute to a rich harvest. But if the crust of the Easter cake cracks during baking, expect trouble.

Everyone decides for himself whether to believe or not to believe Easter superstitions (although the Church does not welcome such signs), and Easter cakes are still baked on the spring Easter holiday, except that the recipe has changed a little.

Currently there are many different recipes dough for Easter baking. Let's look at the most delicious of them.

Viennese Easter cake dough

Viennese Easter cake dough is classic recipe Easter cake. This is how most pastries are prepared for Easter. This Easter cake dough has rich taste, it does not become stale for a long time.

Ingredients:

• Flour - 6 glasses;
• Milk -2 glasses;
• Butter -1.5 - 2 packs;
• Sugar -2 cups;
• Eggs - 6 pieces;
• Yeast - 50 grams;
• Salt - 1 teaspoon:
• Raisins (the classic recipe calls for raisins, but you can add any additives you want).

Cooking process:

1. First of all, you need to prepare the dough. To do this, combine eggs and sugar, beat thoroughly, pour melted butter and warm milk with yeast diluted in it into the mixture. Mix everything well and place it on the battery to rise.
2. Important point! The dough for Vienna cakes should sit for a long time - ideally all night.
3. When the dough “fits”, add sifted flour to it and knead the dough. You need to knead until the dough stops sticking to your hands.
4. In the middle of the process, you can add raisins, dried apricots or other additives to your taste into the semi-finished dough.
5. When the dough is ready, it should be placed in a mold (or molds) and left warm for 2 hours.
6. You can bake the cake when the dough has increased in volume and becomes fluffy and airy.

The baking time for Vienna cake depends on the volume of the mold. If you are baking one large muffin, then you need to spend it in the oven for at least 50-60 minutes. If the Easter cakes are small - 30-40 minutes.

Always check the readiness of the cakes with a match or a toothpick and don’t miss the moment when the dessert is baked.

This recipe is the most popular; the most famous Easter dish has been prepared using it for decades. However, you can safely make your own changes to the recipe and experiment with additives.

Kulich without yeast

Everyone knows that our ancestors did not have yeast, so they prepared bread with hop or wheat sourdough. But there is no need to delve into history and look for a sourdough recipe to prepare a yeast-free Easter cake. Nowadays you can prepare baked goods without yeast using soda. By the way, such baking will be much more useful than simple yeast dough for Easter cakes.

Ingredients:

• Flour – 1.5 cups;
• Kefir - 1.5 cups;
• Butter - 1 pack;
• Baking soda - 1 teaspoon;
• Sugar - 0.5 cups;
• Any additives to your own taste.

The amount of sugar can be increased depending on how sweet you want to bake.

Cooking process:

1. Prepare all food and utensils for work.
2. Sift the flour through a sieve, add the soda to the kefir and let the mixture brew for a couple of minutes.
3. Melt the butter in a water bath, stir in sugar and additives (optional).
4. Next, add kefir to the butter-sugar mixture and stir the resulting dough well.
5. Flour is added last and the dough is thoroughly mixed again.
6. If the Easter cake dough turns out to be very liquid, add a few more tablespoons of flour.

The good thing about this dough is that it doesn’t take much time to prepare. Unlike yeast cake, its yeast-free counterpart can be placed in the oven right away. These cakes take 30-40 minutes to prepare (check readiness with a toothpick).

Easter cake dough without eggs

This recipe will definitely appeal to vegetarians and those with egg allergies.

Ingredients:

• Water or milk - 1 glass;
• Sugar - 1 glass;
• Flour - 4 – 4.5 cups;
• Butter - 1 pack;
• Sour cream - 0.5 cups;
• Yeast – 50 grams;
• Salt – 0.5 spoons;
• Lemon zest, raisins, chocolate or other additives to taste.

Cooking process:

1. Lightly heat water or milk and add yeast to it. Stir so that there are no lumps, and then add 2 tablespoons of sugar and a handful of flour. The dough is ready - leave it to “rise” in a warm, windless place for 15-30 minutes.
2. At this time, melt the butter (you can use a water bath) and mix it with sour cream.
3. Next, add the dough to the butter. This must be done carefully and stirred slowly and carefully.
4. Add sugar, salt, additives to the resulting mixture and stir thoroughly.
5. The latter is a pain. It is recommended to sift it first and add it in small portions to the resulting mixture.
6. Next, you need to knead everything thoroughly. (Don't forget to wet your hands vegetable oil so that the dough does not stick!)
7. Place the finished dough in a warm oven or near a radiator and let it rise twice. Only after this can you start baking the cake.

Additives for dough

Just Easter cake dough is boring, but on Easter you really want joy! In order to “color” the bright spring holiday even more, you can show your imagination and bake Easter cakes with different additives.

What can you add to the dough:

• 1.Dried fruits

The most common additive is, of course, raisins, but you can also add other dried fruits: dried apricots, dates, prunes, dried apples. Even if the recipe does not involve adding dried fruits, they will never be superfluous.

• 2.Candied fruits

These colorful dried fruits Not only will they make the dough more tasty, but they will also give the Easter cake a joyful, festive look.

• 3. Nuts

Any kind will do - cashews, walnuts, almonds, pine. It is recommended to cut large nuts or grind them in a coffee grinder in advance.

• 4.Chocolate

Confectionery stores sell special chocolate “drops” for decorating baked goods, but you can add regular chopped chocolate.

• 5. Lemon or orange zest

It will give the cake an unusually fresh citrus flavor. In addition to the zest, you can add a little to the dough lemon juice- it will make the dough softer and softer.

• 6.Spices

You can add vanilla extract or cinnamon powder to the recipe. Cardamom and nutmeg will give baked goods a piquant taste, and saffron will color the dough a sunny yellow color.

• 7.Confectionery additives

Coconut flakes, multi-colored powders, marzipan - the modern confectionery industry generously gifts us with its inventions. The Easter cake dough can not only be decorated, but also colored with special food coloring!

Making Easter cake with your own hands and treating your family and friends to it is real happiness! And it depends only on you how tasty, beautiful and festive your baked goods will be. Don't be afraid and experiment! Delight your family and friends with delicious dishes.

It’s difficult with Easter cakes; we bake them once a year. Therefore, when we bake, we draw conclusions from our mistakes, but after a year we forget them. That is, it’s impossible to, as they say, get your hands on. And that’s why you must have a good proven recipe in your arsenal. A recipe that guarantees that the cake will turn out great.

This is the recipe he showed us Sergey Sinitsyn, chef of the Kompot restaurant:

Molds. We bake Easter cakes in condensed milk cans. You get mini Easter cakes, for 1 serving. I don’t think there is any danger in these jars when heated; we cook condensed milk in them. And this temperature, although lower, is not much.

To prevent the cakes from burning, we put baking paper in the jars.

Yeast. I only work with dry ones. But when I worked at a bread factory, it was about 12 years ago, they used compressed yeast. They are very fragrant. They brought us huge briquettes, and one such piece gave off a smell throughout the entire workshop. But such yeast acts longer than dry yeast.

Butter. It must be very good and of high quality. Room temperature. The oil should be very soft.

Honey. We use it together with sugar, honey gives an excellent aroma. Well, it’s still healthier than sugar.

For 4 small Easter cakes

Ingredients:

Photo: AiF/ Alexey Vissarionov

For the dough:

• 80 ml warm milk,
• 7 g dry yeast,
• 1 tbsp. l. honey,
• 60 g flour.

For the test:

• 350 g flour,
• 120 g butter,
• 3 eggs,
• 50 g sugar,
• 1 tsp. salt,
• vanilla,
• 70 g raisins,
• 1 yolk for greasing.

Preparing the dough. Stir yeast and honey in warm milk. And slowly add flour into the liquid. Which we sifted through before.

Advice: it is necessary to sift the flour; during the sifting process, the flour is saturated with oxygen and rises better, the product turns out lighter.

Wait. The dough is placed in a warm place, covered with cling film. You can put it on the stove or on the radiator. But don't put it where it's too hot. Yeast may die at temperatures above 40 degrees.

Making the dough. Add the ingredients for the dough to the suitable dough. First liquid, and at the very end - flour. Don't forget to lightly salt the dough.

Knead the dough. You need to knead the dough so that the dough does not stick to your hands, but it should not be hard. It is best to knead by hand. We won't knead a small quantity for very long.

Wait. Again leave for 30-40 minutes. And wait until the dough doubles in size.

Knead. In a good way, after the dough has risen, you need to knead it and leave it to rise again. Then the dough will turn out softer and better. But it is clear that there is not always enough time for this. We often skip this stage.

Arrange into forms. We prepared them in advance and lined them with parchment. We put the dough so that there is a little less than half of it in the mold, because it needs a place to rise.

Still wait. If you didn’t knead them a second time and didn’t let them come up, then after laying them out in shapes, definitely leave the future Easter cakes to stand for a while. They should fit a little. Then you can bake.

Baking. The temperature regime must be observed very carefully. Do not bake at too high a temperature, otherwise the cakes may fall off. We set it to 170 degrees - this is optimal. Yeast reacts very strongly to temperature. And you should not open the oven door while baking.

These small cakes take about 30-40 minutes to bake.

During the baking process, when the top of the cake has already set, you can grease it with yolk.

Get the Easter cake. The cake needs to be cooled in the mold and then removed. As it cools, it will shrink slightly in size and be easy to remove.

Decoration. Can be sprinkled powdered sugar. You can also add glaze to the top. The simplest one: protein, sugar, a few drops of lemon juice. And beat everything very well. If you add a little juice, orange or cherry, to this glaze, you will get multi-colored cakes. Children really like them.

Kulich represents the image of the Resurrection or the victory of Christ over death, and is similar to artos (large church bread with a cross and a crown of thorns depicted on it). Only, unlike artos, the cake is prepared at home.

Usually the dough for Easter cakes is put out from Thursday to Friday, they bake all Friday, and consecrate it the night before Sunday. But, unfortunately, in our time of constant busyness, not every housewife can afford to take several days with this process. And, of course, you want to spend the holiday according to all the rules. This is where a simple Easter cake recipe will come to your aid.

The main thing is not to forget about several rules when using, this has its own characteristics:

When preparing the dough for Easter cakes, you need to make sure that there is no draft in the room - Easter cakes love warmth.

The dough for Easter cakes should be of medium thickness; if the dough is too liquid, the cakes will become flat after baking; if it is thick, the baked goods will be heavy and will go stale very quickly. The required density will be achieved when there is no need to add flour when dividing the dough.

You need to knead the dough as long as possible, putting all your love into it, wishing good things to your family and friends.

The dough must rise three times: 1. after dissolving, 2. after kneading, 3. after the dough is distributed into molds

The dough should ferment at a temperature of 30 degrees

It is necessary to fill the form halfway, and in some cases even 2/3

Easter cakes should rise in a room temperature that will be from 30 to 45 degrees

If the dough has risen almost to the edges of the pan, it can be placed in the oven.

You need to bake in an oven with a container of water at the bottom. Oven temperature from 200 to 240 degrees

After baking, the bread is brushed with an egg, which is beaten with a tablespoon of water and butter. Sprinkle with coarse sugar, breadcrumbs and chopped nuts on top

The secret to a smooth, tall product is a wooden stick (long match) in the center. This is also a way to check if the cake is ready: if the stick (match) you pull out is dry, your cake is ready!

The size of the cake affects the baking time. The greater the weight of the cake, the longer you need to keep it in the oven, and accordingly, the less the weight, the shorter the cooking time. If the baked goods start to burn, you need to cover the top with paper.

The Easter cake, removed from the oven, must be placed on a barrel and wait until it cools down.

Simple Easter cake recipe

Ingredients:

Measurement unit - glass

Flour - 7.5

Milk - 2.5

Yeast – 1 sachet (50 g)

Twenty egg yolks

Sugar - 1

Butter (melted) - 2

Cooking method:

Mix flour and milk. Dilute the yeast in a small amount of milk and add to the flour mixture. We put everything in a warm place. Grind egg yolks with sugar and warm milk, add to the risen dough, then add the remaining flour and salt. Knead the dough well and leave to rise.

After the dough has risen, divide it and put it into molds. After the dough has risen in the molds, put it in the oven and bake.

If you really don’t have enough time, then you can use a modern means of baking bread - a bread machine, and then, in order to bake a tasty and quick Easter cake, you will have to spend only a little effort on preparing the ingredients for the dough.

A simple Easter cake recipe for a bread machine

Ingredients:

Yeast - 15 grams

Flour - 450 grams

Sugar - 6 tablespoons

Vanillin - one sachet

Butter - 2 tablespoons (tablespoons)

Eggs - 3 pieces

Milk – 150 ml

Raisins – 100 grams

Turmeric – ½ teaspoon

Cooking method:

Prepare the raisins in advance by boiling them in boiling water for 10-15 minutes. Melt butter in heated milk, then cool. Place all ingredients, except raisins, in the bread machine in the order specified in the recipe. The raisins must be placed in the bread machine after fifteen minutes of kneading. Next, set the program “Sweet bread” or “Main with raisins” and that’s it! Now all that’s left is to wait for the machine’s work to be completed and enjoy a beautiful and delicious Easter cake!

Not only Easter appears, but also the illuminated Easter cake. Quite often in the old days, a lot of dough was prepared for Easter cakes, since larger volumes of Easter cake dough ferment better. But unlike regular test for pies, where chefs do not recommend putting eggs, in real Easter cake dough, against all odds, they put from 5 to 7 eggs, beaten into a foam before mixing. The basis of the products is a high protein content, a lot of butter and a large amount of sugar.

These components will allow any cook to get what she needs, and with an increase in the number of eggs, ready-made eggs will only last longer, while almost not becoming stale. About the fact that a large number have been created various recipes, and on the Internet you can always find a huge amount. But all culinary specialists agree on one opinion - for Easter cake, not only the content, but also the form is important. It is worth noting that the shapes for Easter cakes can be completely different.

Since most often soft Easter cake is prepared from yeast dough, then the yeast must only be fresh, and it is not recommended to immediately overload the dough with baking. That is why Easter Easter cake dough is prepared in several steps at once, which are classified into the gradual introduction of oil, then a large number of eggs, and, finally, sugar. You will have to nurse and nurture the dough for a very long time. In addition, chefs recommend not exposing the Easter cake dough to drafts, but rather placing it in a warm, dark place and covering it with pillows.

As a rule, after a person has learned easy recipe Easter cakes, he doesn’t think about the future taste and does everything at once. But the dough for Easter cakes must be mixed on the night from Thursday to Friday, so that Easter cakes can be baked from it the whole next day. Usually, on the night from Saturday to Sunday, Easter cakes are blessed, and they treat each other only in the morning. Easter cakes can be eaten throughout Easter week, right up to Radonitsa. When baking Easter cakes, it is necessary to use special metal low cylindrical molds made of universal thick tin. Thus, after moistening the inner surface with oil, prepare delicious cake will not cause any difficulty.

You can also use ordinary metal aluminum pans with a total volume of 1-1.5 liters, but no more. If you use taller and more voluminous dishes when cooking, then in a gas or electric stove such dough may not only fail to bake, but also become soggy or dry out. In the old days, small Easter cakes were often made in special bucket molds. Easter cakes were quickly baked in them, almost the same as in a Russian oven. Below is an easy, time-tested Easter cake recipe.

Easy Easter cake recipe

To prepare this dish we need 1 kg of high-quality flour, 2 cups fresh milk, 5-6 chicken eggs, 500 g butter, about 3 cups sugar and 200 g yeast. For decoration we use candied fruits and vanillin.

First you need to knead the dough. To do this, we begin to dissolve the yeast in warm milk, and at the same time add half a kilo of flour. Cover this batch and place in a warm place for about an hour. Then add the yolks, which were previously beaten with sugar, and a small amount of vanillin. After this, you should gradually pour in the melted butter and gradually mix everything.

When the dough begins to rise, you need to add washed and dried candied fruits and nuts to the dough and mix everything thoroughly. The dough is laid out in forms, and the dough is placed in hot oven at a temperature of 300-300 degrees for an hour. After that, all that remains is to look after it and decorate the dish after cooking.

I hope that after my article you understand how to prepare this dish using an easy Easter cake recipe.

1. Let's say right away that everything, or almost everything, depends on the dough, or rather on its quality. You should start by heating the milk in a saucepan to 30 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer at hand, you can immerse a clean one in it! finger and focus on such sensations - cold milk has a temperature of 15-20 degrees, if there is no difference, then it is approximately 26-32, if warm, then above forty.

2. Add sugar to the milk (literally one or two spoons and about 1/3 of the total amount of flour), pour in the yeast, mix thoroughly and let it brew. If everything is done correctly, the volume of the dough should approximately double, and this will take approximately 40-45 minutes.

3. Now melt the butter and cool it a little, add the rest of the sugar, salt, vanillin to the dough, beat in the eggs and pour in the butter.

Slowly add most of the remaining flour after kneading the dough and knead the dough. Gradually add flour in small parts. Don't forget to knead. The Easter cake dough should hold its shape and not be runny, but also not turn into a hard lump.

4. Leave the mixture in a warm place for another 45 minutes so that the dough rises well.

5. Wash the raisins and soak them in hot water for a few minutes to soften them. Afterwards, drain the water, rinse the berries and squeeze lightly.

6. Add pure raisins to the risen dough and knead so that they are evenly distributed.

All that remains is to distribute the dough into the molds. They should be 1/2 or 2/3 full.

7. We also leave the forms with the Easter cake dough to stand for 35 - 40 minutes.

8. After this, preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Place the future Easter cakes in the oven and cook for about 45 - 50 minutes.

If the top begins to darken, you need to cover the cakes with parchment soaked in water.

9. Remove the finished cakes from the oven, leave for 30 minutes and begin to decorate. The simplest glaze will do for this. To prepare it, you need to dilute three tablespoons of powdered sugar in a tablespoon of warm milk, stir until smooth, brush the top of the cakes with a brush and leave to harden.

That's all, all that remains is to decorate the Easter cake with sprinkles, which are sold in a large variety in stores.

This amount of dough will make quite a lot of Easter cakes. Everything, of course, depends on the diameter of the mold. We got three 15 cm in volume and four 10 cm in volume.

I have been baking Easter cakes according to this recipe for many, many years, so who still doubts and is looking for delicious baked goods For Easter, I tell you: bake this delicious simple cake and you won’t regret it. The recipe is very simple!

Bon appetit and Happy Easter!

Best regards, Natalya Salmina.
Step by step recipe with a photo specifically for the Well-fed Family website.