Easter cake from Olga Vashketova

Description

According to this Easter recipe, my great-grandmother, grandmother, and now my mother cooked Easter cakes. On Easter Eve, she sleeps fitfully and gets up to make sure the dough is rising. Life goes on in a huge saucepan, the dough breathes like a person doing a great job, and makes sounds: puff puff ... Like a grown child, it tries to leave its cramped cradle.

Why are cookies so delicious? They have the warmth of mother's hands, her excitement and desire to please loved ones, her love!

Soul, hands and faith - these are the three components of the Easter cake!

Cooking

Step 1

Prepare the syrup. Mix the juice of 2 lemons with 500 g of sugar and spices to your taste (allspice, star anise, cloves, cinnamon, zest, vanilla) or leave without spices. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until honey-colored. Reduce the orange juice a little. Pour syrup and orange juice over raisins and cherries. Strain and dredge raisins and cherries in flour.

Step 2

Prepare the steam. Mix milk with water, heat to 43 C. Stir in yeast, ¼ cup sugar, 4 tbsp. flour. Cover with foil and leave for 30-40 minutes until doubled in volume.

Step 3

In the bowl of a planetary mixer (hook attachment), mix the eggs, sugar, vanilla essence, vanillin and zest, 30 seconds.

Step 4

Transfer the dough to the mixer bowl, add the remaining flour, butter, dried fruits and knead for 5 minutes. Transfer the dough to a bowl greased with oil, cover with cling film and leave for 4 hours until the volume increases by 2-3 times.

Step 5

Remove the dough from the bowl, dust lightly with flour and transfer to the molds. The dough should take up about 3/8 of the mold. Make a cross cut at the top.

Step 6

Wrap the molds in clingfilm and leave to rest for 2-3 hours until doubled in volume. Sometimes you have to wait a little less or a little longer.

Step 7

Brush the surface of the cakes with a small amount of the egg and milk mixture, being careful not to press the dough down.

Step 8

Preheat the oven to 178 C, without convection. Bake the cakes for 35-40 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 160 C and bake for 10 minutes. Then bake for 7 minutes. at 150 C and 5 min. at 140 C. Check the cake for readiness: the spaghetti inserted in the center of the cake should remain dry. Remove the cakes from the oven and cool for 10 minutes in the mold, then remove from the mold and wrap with a towel. Leave it like this to rest for 30-50 minutes.