How to put good dough on Easter cakes. Easter cake: the easiest recipe for traditional baking

It is difficult to imagine a festive table for Easter without a beautiful, fragrant and, of course, delicious Easter cake.

Homemade Easter cake, although it requires quite a lot of time and effort, will never compare with the store.

Made only from natural products and with love, it will create a unique Easter atmosphere in the house and will not get stale for a week and a half. In order to get a delicious Easter cake, you need to properly make the dough for Easter.

By the way, do not forget to decorate the eggs for Easter, they, like Easter cake, are traditional for a festive feast on this Bright Sunday.
Along with Easter cake and eggs, this holy holiday decorates the table.

Novice housewives and experienced cooks who are worried about the results of their efforts should refresh their memory with a few tips for preparing a real Easter cake.

Recipe for Success: How to Make Easter Dough

1. Careful preparation

All products that are needed according to the recipe should be prepared in advance. Eggs, milk should be taken out of the refrigerator in advance, butter should be softened, raisins should be soaked, nuts should be chopped. The same applies to dishes: everything you need should be at hand, washed and wiped dry.

2. Quality flour

In order for the yeast dough for Easter cake to turn out magnificent and tasty, it is necessary to use only the best flour for its preparation. It should be stored in a clean container, in a dry and dark place. If the flour is damp or there are insects in it, in no case should you knead dough for Easter cake from it.

3. Natural yeast

Many housewives try to follow modern trends in cooking and, in particular, replace natural yeast with dry ones. Perhaps, in some cases, this product really justifies its popularity, but it is not suitable for making Easter cakes. Easter dough with dry yeast is less suitable and stale much faster. However, natural yeast, if stale, can also be a fiasco.

The amount of yeast is also important. The average recommendation is 50 g per 1 kg of flour. However, if the Easter recipe involves the use of a large number of eggs and dried fruits, it is recommended to increase the percentage of yeast by a third.

4. Spices

Any pastry needs spices. But there should not be many of them in the Easter cake test. The task of spices is only to emphasize its taste, but in no case to interrupt it.
Therefore, it is usually enough to limit yourself to a small amount of vanilla, cardamom or nutmeg (sometimes cinnamon or ground cloves are added, but this is not for everyone).
A pleasant citrus note will give a little bit of lemon or orange peel, and a pleasant color - a teaspoon of natural ground saffron or turmeric.
Using cocoa, you can cook an unusual chocolate cake.

5. Proper dough

The sponge dough for Easter cake should be very well kneaded. According to tradition, this is done by hand, for 20-30 minutes, clockwise. Under no circumstances should you interrupt or change direction. You can, however, make it easier for yourself by calling a mixer for the initial mixing of the components. A sign of the readiness of the dough is when it stops sticking to the walls of the dishes and hands.

6. Constant temperature

The main enemies of the dough for Easter cake are sudden changes in temperature and drafts. It is best that it rises indoors at room temperature. But heating the dough or putting it in a slightly warm oven, as is sometimes advised to speed up its rise, is not worth it.

7. Shape and size

Since Easter yeast dough increases at least twice in volume during baking, Easter cake molds are usually only half filled. If you want to get a product with a less dense texture, you can leave two-thirds of the mold free.

The size of Easter cakes depends almost entirely on the preferences of the hostess, but it should be remembered that too large specimens can remain raw in the middle, and too small ones risk being too dry.

8. How to bake Easter cake

The oven must be preheated to the desired temperature. Putting Easter in the oven, try to open the door as little as possible during the entire baking time.
If the cake has found a golden crust on the outside, but has not yet baked inside, you can put a circle of baking paper on top of it: this will help it not to burn.

9. How to cool Easter cake

Cooling an Easter cake is a whole science. Due to the high density of the dough, this requires a long time and does not tolerate haste. The baked hot cake must be wrapped in a towel and put on its side. To ensure the most uniform cooling, sometimes it will have to be rolled. Even if the outside of the cake is already cold, you must definitely wait until it has completely cooled inside. On average it takes 3-4 hours. Be patient and take your time so that your cake stays fresh for a long time and does not get stale.

10. Preparing the Glaze

The traditional icing for Easter cakes is egg white whipped with sugar. But it can be any other icing at your discretion. Its main function, in addition to decoration, is to keep the freshness of the product longer. An important condition: only a completely cooled cake is covered with icing.

11. Positive attitude

Along with all the above tips, the mood of the hostess is no less important. Since ancient times, it was not by chance that yeast dough was considered almost a living organism, in Russia it was impossible to swear, shout, get angry with it - these were sure signs that the dough would not rise and would generally turn out to be unsuccessful.

Therefore, before starting an Easter cake, try to forget about everyday stresses and problems for a while, put aside all other things and focus on good and bright thoughts. And then the Easter cake will “thank you” and succeed in glory!

Rules and secrets of cooking Easter cake

When to bake? According to all the rules, you need to bake either on Pure (Great) Thursday, or on Saturday before Easter. Before that, you need to tidy up the kitchen and get rid of the thoughts that weigh on you. Do not shout and do not quarrel, do not rush, think only about something good, especially when preparing the dough.

The dough for Easter cakes is perhaps the most capricious and requires special knowledge, skills and, of course, skill. The famous confectioner Alexander Seleznev tells about how to make a dough and how to knead the dough in order to get the perfect Easter cake for Easter.

What should be the dough for Easter cakes?
Yeasty and rich - this is a prerequisite. There is a lot of butter, eggs, sugar, milk or cream in the dough for Easter cake. And, of course, candied fruits, dried fruits, raisins are added to it.

Is the dough for Easter cake usually capricious?
It is complex. He does not like drafts, does not like being disturbed once again. If you have covered the dough, you do not need to come up every five minutes and see if it has risen or not. We kneaded the dough, set it, covered it and wait for it to ferment.

Again, it is better to knead the dough for Easter cake with fresh yeast, and it is difficult to buy fresh yeast. Because they have a short shelf life. So, if you come across high-quality yeast, they can be frozen and then stored for a very long time.

About yeast and dough

How to calculate the amount of yeast for Easter cake?
Live yeast goes in a ratio of one to two - 22 grams of live yeast per 500 grams of flour. Dry, I prefer french ones: one sachet ( 11 grams) per 500 grams of flour.

And how to make steam?
For one tablespoon of yeast, you need to take one teaspoon of sugar, about 50 ml of warm water and flour, and mix it all. Ideally, there should be enough flour so that the consistency of the dough becomes similar to not too thick sour cream. Sugar and flour are added to yeast so that they begin to feed, multiply and divide. If you put the dough in a warm place, then in 30-60 minutes it will be ready for sure.

In order for the yeast to start “growing” faster, the dough can be made without water and flour. Take fresh yeast and sugar ( source of nutrition and propagation of yeast) in a one-to-one ratio and mix. The sugar will begin to melt quickly and the yeast will increase in volume in a couple of seconds.

What absolutely can not be added to the dough?
If you add salt to the dough, it won't rise at all. Salt kills the fermentation process. Even vegetable oil is never added to the dough. The fatty film envelops the yeast - they will not be able to take food.

How to understand that it's time to add the dough to the dough?
Don't forget about steam. First it rises, and then it starts to fall. It is this moment that indicates that the dough is ready and it is time to introduce it into the dough.

Some make a big mistake: they let the dough rise, then it falls, as it should be, but they leave it, deciding that when it comes up a second time, it will become even better. Opara rises, but not so high, because the yeast in it is already starting to die, because they have nothing else to eat: they have already processed all the sugar and multiplied.

About dough

What flour is suitable for cake?
Top or first grade. Before kneading the dough, you need to sift it twice to saturate it with oxygen and get rid of impurities.

What temperature should the dough be?
Same room temperature. Products must be taken out of the refrigerator two hours before you start kneading the dough, and let them stand at room temperature.

Typical mistakes when kneading dough?
Many people dilute milk with yeast, add sugar, eggs and then add flour. And it should be the other way around. Flour should not be poured into the liquid, because there will be lumps. Our grandmothers also knew the right way: they poured flour on the table, made a hole and added eggs there, then poured in the liquid and began to knead the dough. The same applies to the cake. Sift the flour, make a hole, pour in the eggs, add the dough, and only then - the liquid. It can be water, milk or cream. And start kneading dough.

And, so that the fatty medium does not envelop the yeast and they can eat, soft butter is added to the dough as a last resort. You can tell when the dough is ready and gathered into a ball. After the butter is added, everything must be mixed for a very long time. Until the oil is completely absorbed into the dough, which will stick to everything at first because you added fat. But when you mix it until smooth, it will immediately begin to peel off both from the walls of the dish and from your hands.

Does it matter how you knead the dough?
You can knead either with a mixer for 20-30 minutes, or by hand for 40-60 minutes. My grandmother always said that the dough for Easter cake should be kneaded until the sweat comes down from the back of the head to the waist. Only then can the dough be considered ready. Therefore, it is better to take a mixer or combine with a hook attachment. In order for the cake to come out porous and rise, the yeast must be distributed evenly throughout the entire volume of the dough.

When is the right time to add dried fruits and nuts?
Dried fruits, nuts and candied fruits are added to the dough at the very last moment. Raisins must be sorted out so that there are no seeds, sticks or debris. Be sure to wash and preferably soak. I like to soak raisins in cognac or rum, or in orange or apple juice - so that they swell. Then it will become juicy and will burst when you eat Easter cake. You can also add candied orange, candied lemon peels.

When the dough is kneaded, it should stand for an hour and a half in a warm place, covered with a linen napkin or towel, to rise. If you add nuts, raisins or dried fruits all at once, it will be difficult for the dough to rise. These supplements they will imprison and it just won't rise.

How to properly proof dough for Easter cake?
So, you kneaded the dough, covered it with a towel and put it in a warm place. ( Keep in mind that during the first approach, the dough can increase in volume by ten times, or even more..) In order for the dough to stand apart, you need to make two punches. My grandmother reined him in, hitting him with her fist, but you can use her palm as well. When the dough rises for the first time and after about an hour when the dough rises a second time. Now you can add raisins, nuts, dried fruits and candied fruits. Add and mix. Leave the dough again to rise a third time, and only after that put it on the table.

What's next?..
The table should be greased with vegetable or melted butter. It is undesirable to sprinkle with flour: the dough will dry out and take excess flour. But we don’t need this: then the Easter cake will be hard to rise. We also grease our hands well with oil and begin to form small pieces of dough of 300-400 grams, which are desirable to lay out in special forms for Easter cakes. They are covered with silicone, which means that the dough will not stick. The form must be one-quarter or one-third full.

And can you put it in the oven?
No. Cover the molds with cheesecloth or a towel and again proof in a warm place for about an hour. Maybe even in a closet. And be sure to place a cup of water next to it - for moisture, so that the dough does not dry out. And when it again approaches almost to the very top of the form, you can send the cake to the oven.

If the form is not silicone, but metal, then it is necessary to lay out its bottom and walls with parchment, otherwise the cake will stick. It will not help even if you grease the form with butter and sprinkle with breadcrumbs, because the Easter cake is very tender.

How long to bake a cake?
Large Easter cake 40-50 minutes or even an hour at 180°C. If the Easter cakes are small, they are baked for 20-30 minutes at 220°C. Keep in mind that the larger the cake, the lower the temperature should be and the longer the baking time. Therefore, you should not put a large cake and small ones together.

If the dough falls through in the middle, what's the problem?
The dough just didn't bake. Kulich was not brought to readiness. Or often opened the oven; the heat came out, and the temperature dropped - from this, the cake can also fail.

If the surface of the cake is uneven or rises from one side?
This means that the dough was poorly kneaded, and there was more yeast in one place than in another. Also, the reason may be in a malfunctioning oven. When the heat is stronger on one side and less on the other.

After what time can I look into the oven?
Approximately 30-40 minutes later, but it is still undesirable to do this. You can open it only if you see, for example, that the crust is starting to burn. Then put foil or parchment on it to reduce the heat from above.

How to remove the cake from the mold?
You can not immediately get it out of the form. The sides of a freshly baked Easter cake are not quite dense, and can settle. Therefore, leave it in the form until it has completely cooled down, and only then take it out.

As soon as the cake has cooled, the surface must be greased with melted butter. This will increase the shelf life of the cake. If you want to store Easter cakes for a long time, you need to cover them with a linen towel and leave them in a warm place. Due to the large amount of sugar, eggs and fat, Easter cake can be stored for a week.

Easter cake on cream from Alexander Seleznev

I always cook Easter cake with cream. It turns out airy, almost weightless. I discovered this recipe about five years ago and have been using it every year since then.

For test:

640 g flour
5 eggs (250 g)
200 g sugar
200 ml cream (22% fat)
100 ml milk
100 g seedless raisins
100 g candied fruits
25 g dry yeast
a pinch of salt

For glaze:

200 g powdered sugar
1 protein (30 g)
1 st. l. lemon juice

What to do:
Dissolve yeast in warm milk, add a pinch of sugar and 2 tbsp. l. flour. Let go 20 minutes.

Sift flour, add lightly beaten eggs with sugar, salt and dough. Knead the dough and gradually pour in the cream. Knead the dough for at least 5-10 minutes with a mixer with a hook attachment.

Put the dough in a warm place and let rise for 1 hour, punch down, let the dough rise again, punch down, add raisins and candied fruits to the dough and mix until smooth. If you are in a hurry, it is enough to let the dough rest for an hour and, after making one punch, add raisins and candied fruits.

Dip your hands in vegetable oil and divide the dough into 6 portions, put them in paper forms for Easter cakes. Let go 1 hour. Place in the oven preheated to 180°C for 40 minutes. Bake until fully cooked.

Cool the finished cakes well and grease the surface with glaze. For the glaze, beat the egg white with powdered sugar and lemon juice until smooth and spread on the surface of the cakes.

Home-made fragrant Easter cannot be compared with store-bought ones. If there is no time, but you want to cook Easter cakes for Easter, use interesting recipes.

This is a fragrant yeast cake with candied fruits and raisins. Cooking time - 4 hours, it turns out 10 servings. Calorie content - 4500 kcal.

Ingredients:

300 ml. milk;
600 gr. flour;
4 eggs;
1/2 stack. Sahara;
30 gr. yeast;
150 gr. ;
100 gr. candied fruits and raisins;
vanilla sachet.

Cooking:

Mix 2 tablespoons of warm milk with yeast, add 1 tsp each. sugar and flour. Place in heat for 15 minutes.
In a large bowl, sift the flour, add the remaining milk and the finished dough. Make the dough and put in heat for 1.5 hours.
Beat the yolks with sugar, put the whites in the refrigerator.
Pour the yolks and melted butter into the dough, add candied fruits with raisins. Put in heat for an hour.
Divide the risen dough into molds halfway and let stand for a while.
Bake at 180°C for about an hour.

Decorate ready-made delicious simple Easter cakes to taste and cut when cool.

Simple cake without butter

This simple recipe does not include butter. But, despite this, Easter turns out delicious and lush. It turns out 5 servings, and this is 2400 kcal.

Ingredients:

3 eggs;
1/2 stack. cream 20% fat;
350 gr. flour;
1/2 stack. Sahara;
25 gr. trembling;
1/2 stack. raisins;
salt.

Cooking:

Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup milk and add 1 tablespoon sugar and 2 tablespoons flour. Leave fit.
Beat 2 eggs and 1 yolk, add a pinch of salt and the rest of the sugar.
Pour the eggs into the prepared dough and stir.
Add a glass of flour and cream to the dough. Knead the dough.
Add flour, knead the dough again. The dough will be runny.
Cover the dough with cling film and a towel and leave for an hour and a half in a warm place.
When the dough has risen, add the raisins and mix.
Spread the dough halfway into the molds and let stand for another half hour.
Bake for an hour in the oven at 180°C.

Ingredients:

1/2 tsp soda;
1 stack fermented baked milk;
1.5 stack. flour;
1 stack ;
1 stack raisins;
1 tsp loosened;
a pinch of vanillin.

Cooking:

Dissolve soda with baking powder in ryazhenka.
Add vanillin with sugar, flour and washed raisins to the fermented baked milk.
Mix the dough and put it into the form.
Put Easter in a preheated oven and bake for 40 minutes.

It turns out 1 Easter, which can be divided into 7 servings.

Simple cake on kefir

According to this delicious and simple recipe, the cake turns out to be lush and soft. Prepared with yeast on kefir. Cooking will take 3 hours.

700 gr. flour;

3 yolks;

50 gr. drain. oils;

a pinch of salt;

80 gr. raisins.

Cooking:

Pour yeast with warm kefir, add sugar and vegetable oil.
Add a glass of flour and stir. Leave the dough warm for 40 minutes.
When the dough is suitable, add the yolks at room temperature.
Add butter and a pinch of salt to the dough, add flour.
Knead the dough and add raisins. Put in heat for an hour.
Divide the dough into parts and put in greased molds so that the dough takes up 1/3. Keep warm for 15 minutes.
Put the forms on a baking sheet with a thick bottom and bake for half an hour in the oven at 190 ° C.

It turns out 5 small Easter cakes, each for 4 servings. Calorie content - 5120 kcal.

Easter cake recipe step by step. Useful tips contained in the article will help bake a wonderful cake even for novice cooks!

A bright Sunday is approaching - Orthodox Easter. By tradition, festive pastries appear on the tables, without which it is difficult to imagine. Some housewives prefer to buy Easter cake, others tend to make them on their own. When you first start baking an Easter treat, you need to follow some rules and tricks. Then the result will be amazing!

Yeast Dough Secrets

The cooking process begins with the dough for Easter cake. Yeast dough is capricious, and in order to avoid problems with it, it is necessary to prepare the kitchen for work:

check the temperature in the room - it must be at least 25 ° C;
we take out all the necessary products from the refrigerator in advance: they must have time to warm up to room temperature;
most importantly - get rid of drafts!

What is all this for? Yeast “wakes up” in warmth and upon contact with cold (draft, product from the refrigerator), they cease their action. As a result - fallen dough, failed Easter cake and wasted effort and money.

Easter cake ingredients

What is required for the test:

4 tbsp. flour (highest grade);
1 st. milk 3.2%;
35 g of live pressed yeast;
4 chicken eggs;
125 gr butter;
1 st. regular sugar;
1 tsp vanilla sugar;
50 gr raisins (or any candied fruits).

For baking:

vegetable oil for lubrication;
parchment.

For glaze:

beetroot juice (optional)
2 tbsp. powdered sugar.

Tip: In this case, use live yeast. They have a higher number of bacteria (than dry ones) necessary for the dough for Easter cake to rise several times.

Step by step dough recipe

Cooking Easter cake begins with dough. The process of working with yeast dough is complex, but the more experience, the better the result.

Final result: Easter cake with fragrant icing / Photobank Lori

In a small saucepan, heat a glass of milk with a fat content of 3.2% to body temperature. You can check this by placing a drop of milk on your wrist (you feel a slight warmth - the temperature is ideal).
Pour the milk into a mixing bowl and add 35 grams of pressed live yeast, then half a glass of regular sugar. Gradually add two cups of flour of the highest grade. We set aside the finished dough in heat for half an hour. During this time, it will double in size. It is better to infuse sweet dough in enameled dishes - it retains the required temperature longer.
At this time, turn on the oven at 180 ° and prepare the baking dishes. Often the molds are simply smeared with sunflower oil. To avoid burning, parchment is needed. Cut out a rectangle for the sides, and a circle for the bottom. Thanks to the oil, the parchment will stick and will not cause you any inconvenience.
In a preheated oven we send 125 grams of butter with a fat content of 72% to melt. It is also necessary to steam 50 grams of raisins with boiling water for ten minutes (replace with candied fruit if desired). Drain off the water and dry on a paper towel. You can’t take more than 50 grams of dried fruits - they will make the dough for Easter cake heavier, because of which it will not rise!
Next we move on to the eggs. First of all, we separate the yolks from the proteins. For the test, leave 4 yolks and 2 whites. Put the remaining 2 squirrels in the refrigerator (they are useful for icing). Beat the separated yolks with a mixer with 0.5 cups of ordinary sugar until a light yellow creamy mass is obtained.
Take the melted butter out of the oven and wait for it to cool down a bit. Important: hot oil will bake the dough and turn it into a lumpy mass. While the oil is cooling, move on to the proteins. Add a little salt to two proteins and beat with a mixer. The dough does not need a dense protein mass. It is enough to foam a little.
After half an hour, we take out the dough and gradually introduce the rest of the ingredients. We mix the yolks first, the second - a teaspoon of vanilla sugar and two glasses of flour. Next, add proteins. At the end, pour in the chilled melted butter. Sprinkle a little flour and knead the dough for the cake. If, after cutting off a small piece of dough with a knife, nothing remains on the blade, then it is ready for the next step.
Set aside the dough again in a warm place. After an hour, take it out and knead it without flour. To do this, grease the work surface and hands with sunflower oil. At this stage, you need to add raisins (candied fruits, dried apricots, etc.). As soon as the dried fruits are evenly distributed, stop kneading.
Depending on the size of the cake molds, divide the dough into pieces and roll into a ball. Given the rise of the dough during cooking, the ball should initially fill the container by 2/3. Cover the molds with a towel and leave for another half an hour.

Baking and decorating Easter cake

The final stage is baking. The oven is already preheated to the desired temperature, it remains to put the Easter cakes there for forty minutes. Important: do not grease the cap of the cake with an egg, because of this the icing will not stick, and so that the bottom of the cake does not burn, pour water into the lower baking sheet.

In the meantime, let's do the frosting. Beat two chilled proteins until foam appears, into which we gradually introduce two glasses of powdered sugar. Tip: By adding a little beetroot juice, you can get the original pink icing.

Let's start cooking Easter cakes right after breakfast. First, take out the oil so that it has time to soften. Then let's start preparing the dough. On a low heat, warm the milk slightly. It should be warm, but not hot - about body temperature (we check with a clean finger), in too hot the yeast will die and the dough will not rise!

Take a large bowl for the dough - take it with a large margin, since the dough will still fit. Pour milk with yeast into a bowl and pour half the flour there (in this case, 1 kilogram).

We cover the bowl with the dough with a towel and put it in a warm place to approach. The dough should double in size. It takes from 40 minutes to 1 hour - very dependent on the room temperature. Now we have time to wash and wipe the forms for Easter cakes, do household chores, drink tea.

When the dough rises, mix everything well.

Beat the yolks with salt, vanilla, cardamom. Gradually add sugar and continue beating until the yolks are slightly white.

Cover the bowl again with a towel and place in a warm place. The dough should double in size again. Now it will take more time - from 1.5 to 3 hours. You can have time to cook dinner and maybe even have lunch!

At the same time, you need to wash the raisins, peel them from the sticks and let them dry.

We check the dough. Oh, it really went up a lot! It's a wonderful yellowish color and it has an amazing aroma!

Leave the cakes to rise in the molds until the dough rises by 3/4 of the height of the mold.

(Here, for those who made a full portion of the dough, some difficulties arise - after all, such a number of Easter cakes will not fit in any oven at the same time! There are several possibilities:

Instead of a large number of small molds, take a few large and tall ones. The area occupied by the forms will be less - everything will fit.
Divide the cakes into two parts, preferably also in size. We leave one part to approach, put the other in the refrigerator to slow down the process. During baking of the first part, we take out the remaining Easter cakes and put them in the heat to rise. We bake after the first.

Those who bake half or quarter portions will not have such problems).

So, the dough filled 3/4 of the form. Preheat the oven to 160-180 degrees and bake the cakes for about an hour. In no case do not open the oven before the Easter cakes are browned, otherwise the dough may fall from the temperature difference!

We check the readiness of the Easter cakes by piercing them in several places with a long wooden knitting needle. If the dough doesn't stick to the needle, the cakes are ready!

Let them cool and decorate with frosting. Ready Easter cakes are stored in a sealed container or in a bag without staleness, up to a week!

Here is a day in pleasant worries and has come to an imperceptible end!

The main thing is to follow our rules and keep the proportions, and on your Sunday table there will be a surprisingly lush and airy muffin with a unique aroma of orange, spicy vanilla and a subtle hint of rum.

So what you need to know:

1. Eggs, butter, sour cream must be of the best quality and very fresh.
2. Before adding candied fruits, dried berries or raisins to the dough, soak them in cognac or rum, the taste of the cake will become truly divine.
3. Butter dough for Easter cakes is very capricious, it is afraid of shaking, temperature changes and drafts, so it is advisable to leave the dough in the oven, if possible, turn on the backlight - it will give a constant temperature.
4. As a spice, vanilla seeds are most often used, and cardamom and nutmeg are much less common. Vanilla can be replaced with more affordable vanillin or vanilla sugar.
5. In order for the dough to be not only fragrant, but also to acquire a delicious golden color, add a little saffron to the dough. We do not recommend that you buy ground saffron, it is often counterfeited. Turmeric can be used as a substitute for saffron.
6. Easter cakes are baked in high, special forms: tin or silicone. Forms must first be greased or laid out with oiled parchment.

And now the recipe for the best cake

The best kulich

Necessary:

Opara:
300 ml warm milk
1 tbsp Sahara
13-15 g fresh yeast (can be replaced with dry yeast, in this case take 10 g)
200 g flour
half a vanilla pod

Dough:
200 ml warm milk
1 tsp salt
40 g butter
saffron on the tip of a knife (0.5 tsp turmeric can be substituted)
200 g sugar
2 eggs
4 yolks
850-900 g flour

150 g raisins
orange
30-40 ml of rum, cognac or vodka

1 egg - for greasing the cake
1 tbsp butter - for greasing molds

Glaze:
3 egg whites
half a vanilla pod
salt on the tip of a knife
250 g sugar

How to cook:
1. The night before, wash the raisins, remove the zest from the orange, pour the raisins and zest with rum and leave to infuse until morning.

The night before, rinse the raisins, remove the zest from the orange, pour the raisins and zest with rum and leave to infuse until morning

2. For the dough, scrape out the seeds from half of the vanilla pod (we will need the seeds later, while we set them aside). Bring the milk to a boil with half the vanilla pod. Cool until warm. Remove the pod and discard. Add to warm milk 1 tbsp. Sahara. Stir.
3. Pour fresh yeast with warm milk. Stir with a whisk until the yeast dissolves.
4. In a large bowl, using a mixer, mix warm milk and sifted flour.

In a large bowl, using a mixer, combine warm milk and sifted flour

Leave for 30-40 minutes in a warm place, covered with a damp towel or cling film.
5. For the dough, heat the milk, adding salt and butter to it. The butter should completely "disperse" in warm milk. Add vanilla seeds and saffron (turmeric).

Add vanilla seeds and saffron (turmeric)

6. Pour the milk mixture into the approached dough.

Pour the milk mixture into the approached dough

7. Add sugar and eggs with yolks.

Add sugar and egg yolks

Beat at low mixer speed.
8. Add sifted flour in portions, it may need a little less or a little more, the dough should not be steep; if the mass sticks to your hands, then you are on the right track.
9. Add raisins to the dough along with alcohol and zest.