Easter cake recipe from Alla Kovalchuk. Easter recipe

To make sure your curd dessert is not only tasty, but also strong, try Alla Kovalchuk’s. This woman has already become so skilled in cooking that she became the winner of the “Culinary Dynasty”, and now she teaches cooking to a variety of celebrity personalities.

Only a competent choice of ingredients will help you make the Easter dish correctly. Here is a list of what you will need:

• kilogram of cottage cheese;
• four eggs;
• sugar - 200 g;
• vanilla sugar - 5 g;
• cream (30%) - 250 ml;
• sour cream - 250 ml;
• butter - 200 g;
• candied fruits - 100 g;
• walnuts - 70 g;
• cinnamon - 1 g;
• ground nutmeg - 1 g;
• cardamom - 1 g.

The main secret of success is the “right” main component.

How to choose good cottage cheese	What is important
What you should first pay attention to when purchasing is the color of the cottage cheese.	If there is a yellow tint, the product is old. The yellower it is, the less freshness remains in it. In order not to make a mistake, buy cottage cheese in transparent packaging.
The fat percentage must be high - at least nine.	Fatty “thickened milk” is better pressed and holds its shape better.
If possible, try the product by touch.	Rub the curds between your fingers: if the resulting mass reminds you of plasticine, feel free to buy it. If it crumbles, don't take it. If whey is released when pressed, you will have to squeeze everything out thoroughly afterwards.

You will also need full-fat sour cream (25%). If there is less fat content, there will be excess whey in the sour cream, and this will not contribute to the strength of Easter. But even oily ones need to be defended in order to get rid of the liquid completely. To do this, tie the sour cream in a gauze knot, insert the stick under the knot and hang it over the bowl. Place the structure of a stick with a knot and a bowl in the refrigerator for an hour.

As for gauze, a square measuring half a meter by half a meter is enough for a knot. But it must be laid in two layers, so the material will need 50 by 100 cm. You will need two more such cuts - for cottage cheese and for Easter itself.

It is important that all ingredients (except sour cream) are at room temperature, so remove everything from the refrigerator in advance. The total weight of candied fruits should not exceed 10% of the weight of the cottage cheese. Excess will cause the Easter to crack. Alla Kovalchuk prohibits the use of candied melon, quince and pear due to their excessive sweetness.

An ordinary plastic flower pot can also be used as a bean box. It is enough to make several holes in it using a heated knitting needle.

Preparing Easter

Squeeze out any remaining whey from the curd. The easiest way to do this is to put it in gauze and twist a stick threaded under the knot. Grind the ingredient through an iron sieve, pressing with a spoon. Add the butter softened in advance and grind again. The mass that passes through the sieve gets rid of the presence of fatty lumps and becomes homogeneous.

Divide the eggs into whites and yolks. Remove the whites: they won’t be needed because they liquefy the egg whites. Beat the yolks with sugar (simple and vanilla) until light yellow. Add the cream in a thin stream. Place the resulting mixture in a steam bath and heat, stirring, until thick. The mass should not be hotter than 50°, otherwise flakes will appear. Checking readiness is done like this: you need to dip a wooden spoon in it, turn it upside down and make a furrow. It shouldn't blur.

Scald the curd mass with the still hot mixture. Mix the mixture thoroughly and leave to cool. Then add chilled sour cream. If sour cream is placed in a mixture that has not cooled down, it may separate.

Soak the candied fruits for five minutes, then dry. Heat the walnuts in a frying pan and place in a plastic bag. It’s even better if the bag has a zip fastener. Pass the rolling pin over the bag several times to crush the nuts to the size of buckwheat grains. Add spices, nuts and candied fruits and mix.

Line a two-liter bean bag with damp gauze and straighten out all the folds inside. It is wetting the gauze that makes it easy to separate it from Easter later. Tamp the mold tightly with the curd mass, cover with the hanging ends of the gauze and place under pressure. The weight of the oppression should be twice the weight of the product itself. Place in the refrigerator.

In a regular beaker, the curd Easter will sit for at least half a day. If there are holes in the bean box (like Aunt Alla’s pot), four hours will be enough.

Starting from Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and also on Saturday, Orthodox Christians will bake Easter cakes - the main dish of Easter 2018.

For this occasion, we have prepared original recipes for Easter cakes - with candied fruits, cherries, cranberries, almonds and others. You can’t go past the already favorite cottage cheese cakes, cake-cakes, and multi-cooker cakes. To help housewives, we publish recipes with photos, videos and step-by-step instructions.

The history of Easter cake

Easter cake or paska is one of the main attributes of the Easter table. In the biographies of Jesus Christ, his meals with his disciples are mentioned more than once. According to legend, after the crucifixion of Jesus, his companions left his place free during the meal and put bread there. This symbolized the resurrection of Christ and his invisible presence at the table.

This is where the tradition of baking special Easter bread and consecrating it in church came from. In addition, paskas are taken with them to the cemetery on memorial days after Easter. People used pieces of Easter cake to tell fortunes and lay them out in the field for a good harvest. How the hostess's Easter cake turned out determined whether the entire next year would be successful - whether the dough had risen well, whether the Easter cake had baked, whether the crust had cracked.

It is interesting that Easter cakes appeared even before the arrival of Christianity in Kievan Rus. Pagans baked special bread in the spring to sacrifice it to the earth for the sake of fertility. This was done before sowing. This bread was baked from sour, leavened dough. Its remains after the rituals were used in fortune telling for the harvest and offspring of livestock.

The flour for the Easter cake must be perfectly dry; before kneading the dough, it must be sifted through a sieve.

When kneading the dough, it is important to monitor its consistency. If the dough is too liquid, the baked goods will spread and will not rise. If it is too thick, the cake will turn out heavy and dry out quickly.

Easter cakes should rise three times - in the dough, when the baking is added, and when the cake is already in shape. While the dough is rising, avoid drafts, slamming doors, or loud noise.

If the cake starts to burn in the oven, cover it with baking paper or foil.

When cut, the finished cake should not stick to the knife - the opposite means that it was not finished baking.

It is recommended to cool the baked paskas by placing the molds with them on their sides.

Curd cake

Ingredients:

Cottage cheese - 1 kg,
. butter - 100 g,
. condensed milk - 2 cans,
. dried apricots - 500 g,
. almonds - 250 g,
. ground cinnamon - 1 pinch.

Step-by-step preparation of cottage cheese cake:

1. Cook cans of condensed milk for 1.5 hours. Soak dried apricots and almonds separately in boiling water for 5 minutes. Remove the almonds, peel them and dry them in a dry frying pan.

2. Mash the cottage cheese with a blender or rub through a sieve. Add softened butter and boiled condensed milk and mix thoroughly again using the same blender.

3. Finely chop the almonds, cut the dried apricots into narrow strips and add everything to the curd mass.

4. Prepare the mold (or molds). We cover the walls of the mold with gauze and place the curd mass there. It’s tight, we even crush it. There should be a lot of gauze so that it hangs down on the sides so that with these edges you can cover Easter on top. Place a pressure - this can be a jar of water the same width as the form. And put it in the refrigerator for two days.

5. Carefully tip the finished Easter out of the mold onto a plate. Gauze helps a lot here - pull the edges and you're done. Sprinkle cinnamon on top. Let's decorate.

Easter with candied fruits

Ingredients:

Flour - 700-800 g,
. milk - 350 ml,
. butter - 300 g,
. vegetable oil - 100 ml,
. eggs - 5 pcs + 1 yolk,
. fresh yeast - 50 g (or 25 g of fresh yeast + a long time to rise the dough in the refrigerator),
. sugar - 300-400 g (1.5-2 cups),
. vanilla sugar - 15 g (1 tablespoon),
. salt (coarse or medium) - 1 teaspoon,
. candied fruits - 150 g,
. raisins (dark) - 150 g
. Candied fruits or marmalade for decoration

for white glaze

Egg white - 1 piece,
. powdered sugar - 200-250 g (or as needed),
. lemon juice - 1 tablespoon

Preparing Easter with candied fruits:

Video source: "Cooking at home", YouTube.

Kulich-cupcake

Ingredients:

Milk - 400 ml,
. Natural yogurt - 100 g,
. Dry yeast - 10 g,
. Wheat flour - 1-1.3 kg,
. Eggs - 6 pcs.,
. Butter - 200 g,
. Sugar - 200 g,
. Raisins - 200 g,
. Vanilla sugar - 1 sachet,
. Cognac sweets - 5 pcs.

Step-by-step preparation of Easter cake:

1. Heat the milk, dissolve yeast and a little sugar, a spoonful of flour. After 10 minutes, add yogurt, half the flour, stir well. Place in a warm place. Cover with a towel. The dough should double in size (this will take about 30 minutes).

2. Separate the whites from the yolks. Grind the yolks with sugar, sweets (mash) and vanilla sugar. Beat the whites with a pinch of salt until foamy.

3. Add the yolks to the suitable dough and mix. Then add softened butter and stir. Add whites, mix. Add the remaining flour.

4. The dough for Easter cakes must be kneaded well; it should not be too stiff. Put the dough back in a warm place. Let the dough rise well (this will take 50-60 minutes).

5. Soak the raisins in warm water for 10-15 minutes, then drain all the water. Add raisins to the risen dough and mix. Place the dough into greased pans.

6. Place in an oven preheated to 100 degrees and bake Easter cakes for 10 minutes.

7. Then increase the temperature to 180 degrees, bake until done.

8. To check the readiness of the cupcake, pierce it with a match (or toothpick); if it is dry, the Easter cupcake is ready.

Easter cake from Alla Kovalchuk

Video source: "Everything will be delicious", YouTube

Easter with almonds and raisins

Eggs - 3 pcs.
. milk - half a glass (200 ml.),
. sugar - half a glass or 200 g,
. flour (only premium grade) - 4.5 cups,
. butter - 150 g (can be replaced with margarine),
. raw yeast - 40 g or 1 packet of dry yeast (11 g),
. raisins - to taste, but not more than 100 g,
. fine salt - a pinch,
. vanilla sugar or vanillin powder - to taste.

For the glaze:

Egg - 1 pc.,
. powdered sugar - 100 g,
. confectionery topping.

Step-by-step preparation of Easter cake in a slow cooker:

1. First you need to soak the raisins in warm water and leave for an hour. Once the raisins are washed, they can be added to the dough. But more on that later.

2. For now, heat the milk to a temperature no higher than 40. We need warm milk so that the yeast can be dissolved in it. Add yeast to milk, stir and leave for now.

3. The next ingredient is sugar. You need to weigh 200 g, pour only 2 tablespoons into the milk with yeast, and mix.

4. Place the bowl with milk, sugar and yeast in a warm place.

5. After some time (it all depends on the temperature in the room and the quality of the yeast), you need to monitor the dough; as soon as bubbles begin to appear, the mixture becomes bubbly and “stirs,” you can start kneading the dough.

6. Pour the dough into a spacious bowl. In a separate container, beat 3 egg whites with sugar and carefully mix the resulting thick foam into the dough.

7. Now you need to sift the flour and add it into the mixture, carefully, in small portions.

8. Mix the dough and leave for 20 minutes (if you use dry yeast) and 1 hour if you use raw yeast.

9. After the specified time, you need to add 1 more glass of sifted flour to the mixture and knead the dough thoroughly. We are not lazy, because the final result depends on how well this part of the work was done.

10. Now you need to take the butter and grind it with the yolks. If the butter is soft, then mixing the ingredients is not difficult, but if the butter has just come out of the refrigerator (or freezer), then you need to grate it on a fine grater, and then mix with the yolks and sugar. You should get a homogeneous mass.

11. Add the mixture to our dough, and also add a pinch of fine salt and vanillin (or sugar).

12. Sift the remaining flour through a sieve and also add to our dough. You may need a little more or even less flour, so don’t pour out all the flour at once, leave half a glass of flour in reserve.

13. Let's start kneading the dough, this is a very important and responsible moment - you need to knead the dough so that it becomes elastic and does not stick to your hands. The whole process will take 15 minutes, so you have to try. Don't forget to put raisins in the dough (drain all the water, put the raisins on a paper towel to get rid of moisture, then roll in flour).

14. The dough is ready, now you need to grease the multicooker bowl with soft butter or vegetable oil (only odorless) and immediately put our dough into the multicooker.

15. Set the “Warming” program and wait until the dough begins to rise.

16. Now switch the multicooker to the “Baking” mode, the time will be set automatically - 45 minutes. This is not enough, so as soon as you hear the signal, the timer will go off and the multicooker will turn off, you need to turn on the “Baking” program again for 45 minutes.

17. After the signal, you can open the lid of the multicooker and admire your work - the Easter cake in the multicooker will turn out beautiful and fluffy.

18. Very carefully remove the finished cake from the appliance bowl and place it on a flat dish.

19. While the cake is cooling, let's prepare the glaze. We only need protein, add powdered sugar to it, mix well. Now you need to beat the egg whites and powder into a strong white foam. This is best done with a mixer.

20. Our cake has cooled down a little and you can coat the top with the freshly prepared glaze. We cover the entire top and “climb” a little onto the sides. If you tried hard and beat the egg whites and powder properly, the glaze should turn out elastic and not spread.

21. We have completed this job, but there remains an equally interesting job - decorating the top of the Easter cake, prepared in a slow cooker, with confectionery sprinkles. This part of the work can be entrusted to the youngest members of the family.

22. That’s it, the Easter cake in the slow cooker is ready.

Using the Easter recipe from Alla Kovalchuk, presented below, you can prepare a classic Easter cake from yeast dough. From the same dough you can make edible Easter bunnies and Easter cakes of other shapes.

Classic Easter cake

Ingredients:

1. Milk – 200 ml
2. Eggs - 4 pcs
3. Butter - 125 g
4. Granulated sugar - 1 cup
5. Vanilla sugar 5 g
6. Flour - 800 g
7. Yeast - 35 g
8. Candied fruits and raisins - 60 g

Step 1

Warm the milk to 36 degrees. Place over moderate heat and remove as soon as you see it warm. Hot milk will also make it difficult for live yeast to work. So fill them with a little warm milk.

Step 2

To prepare the dough, add half a glass of sugar to the milk-yeast mixture. Separate two glasses of flour into a container. First pour one glass of flour into the dough: gradually pour in the flour, stirring continuously. During the preparation of the dough, you should not add salt, otherwise the dough will not rise. Add a second glass of flour in a similar manner.

Step 3

When adding flour, make sure that the consistency of the dough is similar to low-fat sour cream. Cover the finished dough with a towel. Its volume should double. Leave the dough in a warm, draft-free place for half an hour.

Step 4

Take 125g butter and place in the oven for a minute. The oil will become liquid. Leave it to cool. Hot oil should never be used to prepare the dough, otherwise it will not rise. At this time, divide four chicken eggs into whites and yolks. The yolks should be in the same bowl. Divide the whites - one into the first bowl, two more into the second. Wash the egg shells well - you will use them as molds for mini-pastry. To prepare the Easter cake dough, you use 4 yolks and 2 whites, the remaining two whites will be used to prepare the glaze.

Step 5

Mix the yolks with half a glass of sugar and beat. Steam candied fruits and raisins. The recipe for Easter cake from Alla Kovalchuk is simple, but it is very important to follow the given sequence.

Step 6

After this, beat the remaining whites in a separate container. Beat until white foam begins to run down the mixer whisk. There is no need to whip it into too thick a foam.

Step 7

Add the beaten yolks into the dough. Add vanilla sugar (one teaspoon) and flour (two cups). Add flour gradually, stirring constantly. After this, add the whipped whites and mix again. After this, add melted butter that has cooled to room temperature to the dough.

Step 8

Add a little more flour to the dough and start kneading it with your hands. Knead until smooth. After this, sprinkle a wooden board with flour, lay out the dough and continue kneading. The dough is ready if you cut a piece and it does not “stretch” behind the knife. Sprinkle a deep container with flour, place the dough there, cover with a towel and place in a warm place for one hour.

Step 9

Drain the water from the candied fruits and place them on a napkin. Open the risen dough. It needs to be kneaded again. Grease the working surface with vegetable oil. Cut off one third of the dough. This is the part you use to make the Easter bunnies. Mix the rest of the dough with candied fruits and raisins. If you add it earlier, it will be more difficult for the dough to rise. Knead the dough well so that the raisins and candied fruits are evenly distributed throughout the mixture.

Step 10

Fill two-thirds of the prepared forms, greased from the inside, with dough. Be sure to reserve some batter for filling the shell molds. They also need to be lubricated with vegetable oil first. Fill containers that are suitable for use in the oven one-third with salt, secure the egg molds with dough in the center.

Step 11

Cover a baking sheet with parchment and grease with vegetable oil. All that remains is to prepare the Easter bunnies. Divide the remaining dough into three parts. Roll out the dough into ropes up to 20 cm long. Roll each into a spiral. Attach the head and tail of the dough pieces as shown in the video (minute 3:44, part 2). Make eyes out of raisins.

Step 12

Place all pieces for proofing; the dough will double in volume. Place a glass of water next to the dough. In this case, the dough will not dry out. Leave for 30 minutes, then bake at 180 degrees. Check readiness with a match. If there is no sticky dough left on it, the cake is baked. Decorate with icing. If any cooking features are not completely clear to you, watch the video of the Easter recipe from Alla Kovalchuk.

What else to pay attention to

• You already have a recipe for cottage cheese Easter from Alla Kovalchuk, however, it is important to know a number of other features on which the success of the preparation depends. To make the cake more fluffy, butter should be added at the end of kneading the dough. In addition, remember that candied fruits and raisins should be added to the dough in the third batch of dough, when it is completely ready.
• The icing will not crumble when cutting if you apply it while the cake is hot. In the room where you are preparing Easter cake, the air temperature should be at least 25 degrees. Yeast dough is “afraid” of drafts.
• All products that will become ingredients for Easter cake must be removed from the refrigerator in advance so that they are at room temperature before cooking. Use live yeast to make Easter cake, since the recipe assumes that the dough will rise several times.

Cottage cheese Easter from Alla Kovalchuk

Ingredients:

1. Sour cream 25% fat - 250 ml
2. A piece of gauze - 50x50 cm
3. Butter - 200 g
4. Flat wooden spoon
5. Fat cottage cheese - 1 kg
6. Chicken eggs - 4 pcs
7. Granulated sugar - 200 g
8. Vanilla sugar - 5 g
9. Cream 30% – 250 ml
10. Candied fruits - 100 g
11. Walnuts - 70 g
12. Cinnamon - 1 g
13. Ground nutmeg - 1 g
14. Cardamom - 1 g

Before cooking, please note that all products, except sour cream, must be at room temperature. Remove them from the refrigerator at least an hour before cooking.

Step 1

The first thing to do is to get rid of excess moisture in dairy products. To do this, line a deep bowl with gauze folded in two layers and place sour cream there. Connect the edges of the gauze on four sides. Thread the handle of a wooden spoon into the knot. Place the spoon on the bowl so that the gauze bag hangs over the bowl, but does not touch the bottom. Place the structure in the refrigerator.

Step 2

In a similar way, you can squeeze the curd through cheesecloth before cooking. Line a bowl with gauze and place the cottage cheese in it. Pick up the edges of the gauze and tie it in a knot. Also tie the remaining two edges and thread the handle of a wooden spoon through. Begin swirling, pouring excess whey from the curds into a bowl. In order for Easter to take shape, the cottage cheese must be ground after squeezing.

Step 3

Place two tablespoons of cottage cheese in a strainer and grind into a bowl. When you complete the procedure, you need to repeat it, only this time you need to add a tablespoon of softened butter at room temperature to every two tablespoons of cottage cheese.

Step 4

Beat the yolks of chicken eggs with a glass of sugar and vanilla sugar. Beat until light yellow in color. Their volume will double after 2 minutes of beating with a mixer. Add cream (but not milk, the fat content of which will clearly not be enough!), pouring it in a thin stream. Mix everything. After this, the egg mixture needs to be boiled.

Step 5

Pour water into a medium-sized saucepan and place over moderate heat. Place a bowl of egg mixture on top. The mixture should be heated to a temperature of no more than 50 degrees. Stir continuously. After brewing, the mass will thicken.

Step 6

The grated creamy curd mass must be combined with the hot brewed egg-sugar mass. Leave the resulting mass to cool completely. At this time, dry the walnuts in a frying pan. Chop the nuts. In a separate container, fill the candied fruits with water. Dry the candied fruits on a paper towel.

Step 7

Add cold sour cream to the cooled curd mass, stir, then add nuts, candied fruits and spices. The curd mass should be placed in a mold lined with gauze. If there is no special mold, use a new flower pot with many small holes in the bottom and along the edges to drain excess liquid. After just four hours in such a pot, Easter cottage cheese will be ready.

• You already have a recipe for cottage cheese Easter from Alla Kovalchuk, however, it is important to know a number of other features on which the success of the preparation depends. To prepare cottage cheese Easter, use full-fat sour cream. In this case, the curd cake will be more homogeneous and will not fall apart when cutting. Sour cream with less fat content will not provide a sufficient “bundle”.
• It is very important to choose the right cottage cheese for Easter cottage cheese. When purchasing it in a store, pay attention first of all to its color. Therefore, it is better to choose among packages that have a transparent part. For cottage cheese Easter, use only white cottage cheese - this color indicates its freshness.
• If the cottage cheese is yellow, it means the product has already been left in the open air. It is suitable for consumption, but not for making Easter cake. The same goes for yellow curd with white flecks. Most likely, such cottage cheese was mixed with fresher one. The second important note is that cottage cheese for Easter cake should be at least 9%. The consistency of cottage cheese is ideal if it resembles a paste.

Happy upcoming bright Easter holiday to you! In today's pre-holiday issue « » inimitable Alla Kovalchuk reveals everything secrets of Easter baking. Together with the TV presenter Snezhana Egorova you will learn how to cook fluffy and light Easter cake, funny Easter bunnies, original Easter cakes in egg shells And banana bread without yeast.

Does your Easter bake come out flat and your icing is runny like water? Enough! Your holiday will never be ruined again! From now on, on your table there will be only fluffy and airy Easter cake with snow-white glaze! But that is not all! From the same dough you will make incredible Easter bunnies and learn how to bake original Easter cakes... in egg shells! And in addition - a recipe for those who are tired of standing in the kitchen for hours! Fantastic banana bread without yeast!

Together with you, guest star Snezhana Egorova will learn the family secret of making paska from Alla Kovalchuk.

“For Easter, I always bought Easter cakes in the store, because I don’t have time to cook at home,” admits the TV presenter. - I work in a small but very close-knit team of women. So the girls constantly show off their culinary masterpieces and before Easter they eagerly exchange recipes for Easter cakes. I feel like a black sheep. In the end, am I worse, or what? Last year I decided that I could also make delicious Easter cakes myself. I didn’t ask for the recipe at work, I thought I’d surprise the girls with something exclusive. But, of course, I told everyone that I would bring a cake like they had never tried in their lives. I read a lot of recipes on the Internet and started! In general... What I found in the oven was not Easter cakes, but ugly, burnt dough that was falling out of the pan. I couldn’t get the Easter cake out of the mold. It immediately crumbled, broke, stuck to the mold, and had to be taken out in parts. In short, a complete failure."

Everything will be delicious. Broadcast from 04/19/14. Easter cake. Watch online
PART 1

ALTERNATIVE

To prepare a classic Easter cake You will need:
Ingredients:
flour - 400-600 g
milk - 250 ml
yeast - 35 g
sugar - 1 glass
vanilla sugar
butter - 125 g
eggs - 4 pcs.
salt
raisins - 30 g
candied fruits - 30 g

Making the dough: Heat the milk to a temperature of 30 C. Dissolve the “pressed yeast” in the milk, add sugar and flour - knead the dough. Cover with a towel and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes to ferment.

Making the first batch of Easter cake dough: Melt the butter, cool. We separate the eggs into whites and yolks. Grind the yolks with sugar. Beat the whites into a thick foam. When the dough doubles in size, add vanilla sugar, salt, yolks with sugar, flour, and whites. Mix the dough. At the end, add melted butter and knead into a soft, elastic dough. It needs to be kneaded until it begins to easily come off your hands. Cover the dough with a towel and leave in a warm place for 1 hour. The dough should double or triple in size.

Soak raisins and candied fruits for Easter cake for 5-7 minutes. Then dry them on a paper towel.

Making the second batch of Easter cake dough. The risen dough should increase in volume by 2-3 times. Add raisins to the risen dough, knead the candied fruits thoroughly so that they are evenly distributed throughout the dough. Grease the baking pans with oil and pour the dough into the molds, filling them to a third of the volume. Place the molds with the dough in a warm place for 30 minutes. When the dough has filled almost the entire volume of the mold, brush the top with beaten yolk for a glossy shine. We decorate traditional Easter cake with dough products in the form of flowers and leaves. Brush the dough decorations with whipped egg white. Place the Easter cakes in the oven. Bake for 40 minutes at 180 degrees.

Easter bunnies– are prepared from the same dough as the classic Easter cake. We form Easter bunnies: from yeast dough we create a long flagellum or sausage, roll it into a spiral. We make a tail from the dough balls and form an oval hare head, cut at the base of the ball with scissors and form ears. We make hare eyes from raisins. Bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes.

Easter cakes in eggshells– are prepared from the same dough as the classic Easter cake. Forming Easter cakes in eggshells. Before this, the eggs will need to be thoroughly washed. Carefully pierce them from the sharp ends. Make a small hole and carefully pour the eggs into the bowl. We make a hole in the shell such that it is convenient to apply the dough, about two centimeters in diameter. Wash the shell from the inside and again from the outside. It should dry out. Lubricate the inside of the shell with vegetable oil. Fill the shell halfway with dough. Bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees.

For dough decorations you will need:

For the test:

Ingredients:

flour - 0.5 cups
water - 50 ml
salt - a pinch

Preparing the dough: Mix flour with water and a pinch of salt. Knead the dough, which is not too dense. You can make any decorations from the finished dough, which you then place on the Easter cake. Brush the Easter cake with beaten yolk, and the dough decorations with beaten egg white for a good shine.

Preparing dough decorations in the form of roses: Roll out a layer of dough, squeeze out 5 circles with a glass. Lay out the mugs one by one, overlapping. Roll the dough circles into a roll. Cut the roll in half. We press one edge, and the second - we level the resulting layers in the form of rose petals. It turns out two roses from the dough.

Forming leaves from dough. Roll out a layer of dough and squeeze out 3 circles with a glass. Sprinkle the surface of the circle well with flour and fold it in half lengthwise. Cut out the leaf cloves with scissors. Carefully unroll the sheet. Flatten the cloves. Using a knife, carefully apply the veins onto the sheet.

For Easter cake without yeast with banana You will need:

Ingredients:

For the test:
bananas - 2 pcs.
butter - 75 g
sugar - 1 glass
vanilla sugar - 1 tsp.
eggs - 2 pcs.
water - 50 ml
flour - 1.5 cups
soda - 1 tsp.
baking powder - a pinch
salt - a pinch
raisins - 30 g

For the glaze:
whites of two eggs
powdered sugar - 1 cup
lemon juice - 2 tbsp. l.

Preparing the dough: Cream butter at room temperature with sugar and vanilla sugar. Add eggs and continue beating the dough. Mash the banana into puree. Add water. Mix. Add banana mass to the dough. Add soda, baking powder, and whisk everything. Gradually add flour. Mix the dough. At the end add raisins. Knead into a thick, sticky dough. Fill the mold with dough to about ¾ of the height. Bake for 40 minutes at 180 degrees. Remove the finished cakes from the oven and remove them from the mold.

Making icing for Easter cakes. Beat the chilled egg whites, gradually add powdered sugar and lemon juice. Beat the whites into a thick foam. If you want to make a colored egg white glaze, add beet juice, spinach juice or a pinch of turmeric to the whipped egg whites.

Remove the finished cake from the oven. Remove from the pan and let the cake cool slightly, but at the same time place it on its side, constantly turning it so that the cake does not fall off or become deformed. Apply white icing to the hot cake, and use a toothpick to draw patterns with colored icing.

Based on materials from the site smachno.stb.ua

On the eve of Easter, Visti exclusively talked with the expert of the programs “Everything will be good”, “Everything will be delicious!”, as well as a participant in the show “MasterChef-2” on the STB channel Alla Kovalchuk. Thanks to her culinary advice, many housewives learned and loved to cook delicious and original dishes from simple ingredients. On the eve of the Holy Resurrection of Christ, the skilled chef talked about how she helped her grandmother in the kitchen, why she bakes Easter cakes on Saturday and, of course, shared her baking secrets and her recipe.

Grandma's recipe

— Alla, tell us about your first experience in baking Easter eggs?

— In our family, the grandmother was responsible for the Easter cakes. When I was 18 years old, I decided to cook them myself according to her recipe. But I didn’t see the whole cooking process, I just had a piece of paper with the necessary ingredients and their quantity. When the time came, I quickly kneaded everything and baked it, but the dough turned out viscous and heavy. Nowadays there are cooking programs on television, where every movement is “chewed” - what to knead what, how to do everything correctly. I didn’t know anything like that then, and this is very important. It’s not enough to have a recipe; you also need to see the whole cooking process in reality. The first cakes didn’t turn out well, but I’m stubborn and didn’t stop there. Two years later, on about the fifth try, everything worked out. I bake paskas twice - for the holiday itself and for memorial days, because one batch is not enough, even if you hide them under lock and key.

— When you were little, did you help your grandmother prepare Easter cakes?

- Yes, but mostly these were some small processes that are usually interesting to children. For example, separate the whites and yolks or beat eggnog for Easter cake. Back then it was all done by hand - wooden spoon, sugar and egg white.

— Do your children help in the kitchen?

— When we were little, we didn’t help so much as hinder. The eldest son really liked to eat raw dough - he would pinch him, but I know that this is harmful, so I kept pushing him away. Now my daughter is already an adult assistant, she likes to work with the pastry chef, so decorating Easter cakes is her responsibility.

Peak protein

— Many housewives are unable to whip up a good glaze that does not spread. How to make it thick and tasty?

— The most important thing is to beat the egg whites when they are chilled, and do this until “peaks” appear. Only then can you add powdered sugar and a few drops of lemon juice. Under no circumstances mix the egg whites with powder right away - this way you will never whip up the glaze. Then they took the cakes out of the oven, set them to cool, and while they were warm, apply the glaze, do not wait for the baked goods to cool.

— I advise you not to use kitchen machines when kneading the dough, but to do everything by hand. A wooden spoon is best for this, rather than a whisk or fork. It’s convenient and produces a homogeneous consistency. When the dough begins to stretch and becomes homogeneous, leave it to rise for two hours. The more fat there is in the cake, the tastier it will be, the more sugar, the faster it will go stale. Instead of sugar, you can add raisins and candied fruits, first rolling them in flour. The most important thing: when you knead the dough, you need to put it in a warm place where there are no drafts. After placing the cakes in the oven, under no circumstances should you open it for the first 15 minutes. To prevent the paska cap from bursting and the baked goods from cracking, take a spray bottle, which is usually used to spray flowers, and sprinkle water in the oven (the oven should be preheated to 200 degrees). Due to droplets of water in a heated oven, the effect of a combi oven is created. After this, put the cakes in the oven, close, and bake at 180 degrees.

— How much dough do you need to put in the pan for the baked goods to rise?

- For a classic Easter cake - this is 1/3 of the form. If the mold is made of metal, before putting the dough in it, the walls and bottom must be covered with parchment paper. To make the top of the Easter egg beautiful, you need to tear off a ball from the total mass of dough, beat it so that all the folds are at the bottom and the top remains smooth, lower it into the mold and put it in a warm place. When the dough in the container has risen almost to the brim, only then put it in the oven. Otherwise, it will rise quickly in the oven, but will immediately fall.

Early rise

— Do you have any ritual before preparing Easter cake?

— The main thing is that when you get up early in the morning, you need to wash your face, ask God to help and bless you, and start preparing the dough. This is a serious confectionery product that needs to be treated with love and faith in the soul. Under no circumstances should you bake them on Friday - this is a great sin. Many people bake on Maundy Thursday, I bake Easter cakes on Saturday, because if I cook them on Thursday, they won’t survive until Sunday - they’ll be eaten. I get up very early, at 4 am, and by the afternoon the paskas are ready. I also paint eggs in anticipation of Sunday. This year, my daughter and I saw on social networks a new way to dye eggs - using silk. You wrap the egg in a piece of silk cloth and cook it in water and vinegar. The silk design is imprinted on the shell. We want to try this method.

— What do you always put in your Easter basket?

- Like everyone else: Easter cake, eggs, maybe some homemade sausage and a piece of lard. This is what they break their fast in the morning when they come home from church.

Anastasia Nefretova,

photo courtesy of STB TV channel