The approach of Easter - the Holy Resurrection of Christ - is always felt in Orthodox homes. Even a week before the big day, houses are fragrant with the aroma of willow. And on Maundy Thursday the house is filled with pleasant chores. In the morning, housewives begin to tidy up, wash and clean everything around. And after lunch, the real magic begins - the preparation of Easter dishes. The main attribute of the Easter table is Easter cake- a symbol of the presence of God throughout the world, a symbol of the joy and sweetness of heavenly life.

We got our Easter cake recipe from a very wise woman, the mother of a large family. She knows how to enjoy little things, always believes in the best and never gives up. It is with this attitude, with a kind and light heart, that you need to start preparing Easter cake. Our friend's Easter cakes always turn out fragrant and tasty. And all 40 days of Easter do not go stale! The hostess bakes a lot of Easter cakes!!! But we nevertheless begged her to change the recipe to a smaller quantity.

However, we did make a small change to this wonderful recipe. We replaced some of the sugar with natural honey. Honey gives the cake a special aroma and makes the color of the dough even more beautiful. Always remember that sugar is not replaced with honey equally, but approximately 3 to 1. We have already written.

Choose only the best Easter cake products. Use country eggs, high-quality butter and in no case spread, premium flour, full-fat sour cream and, of course, only natural honey.

Get in a good mood, turn on the recordings of the Sretensky Monastery choir and prayerfully start baking.

Ingredients(~ for 5 medium Easter cakes):
Milk - 500 ml
Sour cream 20-30% - 500 ml
Butter - 500 gr
Flour - 1.5 kg
Egg - 10 pcs
Sugar - 750 gr
- 5 tablespoons
Dry yeast - 2 packs
Vegetable oil - 3 tablespoons
Salt
Cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, ginger

Making homemade Easter cake

Easter cake dough should not be prepared from cold ingredients. Therefore, remove milk, sour cream, eggs and butter from the refrigerator in advance. The kitchen should be warm. The dough does not like drafts.

Melt the butter over low heat. Warm the milk. In a large bowl or saucepan, mix warm (about 50ᵒC) milk with sour cream and a full teaspoon of salt.

Separate the yolks from the whites into separate containers. Grind the yolks with half the sugar, beat the whites with the second half of the sugar. Add to milk and sour cream. Pour in the melted and cooled butter. Mix the sifted flour with dry yeast and add to the dough. Add ¼ teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and vanilla to the dough and pour in 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Cover the bowl with the dough with a clean towel and place in a warm place.

When the dough has doubled in size, add raisins and liquid honey. Stir the dough and let it rise again. After this, pour the dough into molds 2/3 full. Bake in a preheated oven for 30-40 minutes at 180°C.

Happy Resurrection of Christ to you!

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Today we will share with you a proven recipe: Easter cakes with honey, which you will certainly be able to prepare if you follow the above recommendations and do not deviate from the recipe.

The Easter holiday is approaching. Housewives are starting to stock up on ingredients for making Easter cakes and everything they need for the Easter basket. The Internet is filled with recipes for Easter cakes, but, unfortunately, they are not always as tasty as we would like.

The fact is that in the technology of preparing Easter baking there are many nuances that should be taken into account:

• if possible, you need to purchase “live” farm milk and sour cream (maximum fat content);
• Use high-quality butter and do not neglect margarine. Butter combined with margarine is ideal for rich baked goods. Before cooking, these two ingredients must be removed from the refrigerator in advance so that they are at room temperature and softened when cooking begins;
• use “live” yeast, dry yeast may not “raise” the dough and the cakes will not turn out “airy”;
• Sugar in the recipe should not be completely replaced with honey (use the proportion we suggested - the Easter cakes will be moderately sweet and will have a pleasant taste and aroma of honey);
• Before cooking, be sure to sift the flour through a sieve;
• eggs should be at room temperature (take them out of the refrigerator first);
• knead the dough for as long as possible and do not spare it (free up most of the work surface, knead the dough with force, hit it on the table and toss it);
• if you want the Easter cakes to have a yellow tint, add a little turmeric to the dough (do not forget that it has a specific smell and taste, like any spice);
• Before adding raisins to the dough, sprinkle it with flour. This way, the raisins will be evenly distributed throughout the cake and will not settle to the bottom of the pan.

To prepare Easter cakes with honey you will need:

• 4 kg. flour
• 1 l. + 250 ml. milk (maximum fat content from 3.2%)
• 25 eggs (including 22 yolks and 3 full eggs)
• 0.5 kg. Sahara
• 200 gr. honey (to make Easter cakes we recommend using any variety of Crimean honey, which you can choose in the section "Honey" our online store)
• 300 gr. sour cream
• 300 gr. butter
• 250 gr. margarine
• 2 tbsp. decoys
• 2 sticks of “live” yeast
• 300 gr. vegetable oil (for kneading)
• 500 gr. raisins
• vanilla

Easter cakes with honey – Preparation:

1. Heat a glass of milk and grind the yeast in it, adding a tablespoon of sugar and flour.
2. Prepare the dough separately.

To do this, bring 1.5 cups of milk to a boil, add 1 tablespoon of sugar, 2 tablespoons of semolina and keep on low heat for 5-7 minutes, stirring constantly (as if you were cooking semolina porridge).

Then the resulting mixture should be cooled and combined with pre-prepared yeast (step No. 1).

1. Heat the remaining milk (without boiling), add sour cream to it, stir thoroughly and add to the dough. Next, add the sifted flour and bring the dough to the consistency of pancakes.
2. Combine the eggs (22 yolks and 3 full eggs) with the remaining sugar and honey using a blender or food processor. Add the resulting eggnog and 2 cups of flour to the dough.

Leave the dough for 20 minutes.

1. Heat the butter and margarine and pour them in a thin stream into the dough. Add the remaining flour and knead the dough to such a consistency that it does not stick to your hands.

Leave the dough to rise for 20 minutes, covering it with a cotton towel.

1. After 30 - 40 minutes, add raisins and vanilla to the dough and begin kneading thoroughly for as long as possible (up to 1 hour). Use vegetable oil for kneading, so the dough will not stick to your hands.
2. After kneading, leave the dough to rise for another 30-40 minutes (until the dough triples in volume).
3. Form the dough into small balls so that they occupy 1/3 of the pan. After you fill the molds with dough, give it a chance to rise (15-20 minutes).
4. Bake the cakes at a temperature of 180-200 degrees, checking the readiness with a dry wooden stick.
5. After the cakes are ready, they need to be allowed to “rest” to cool down and then decorated.

Happy Easter!

Peace and goodness to your homes!

Be healthy!

With Love, Honey Crimea!

Calories: Not specified
Cooking time: Not indicated

How I love pre-holiday chores, especially when it comes to such a bright holiday as Easter. When everyone is running around, fussing, buying food, cooking, baking. At one time we lived in the private sector, and I remember walking home from school along the street, and the fragrant smells of freshly baked Easter cakes were wafting from literally every yard. I come home, and there my grandmother is working magic on her baked goods, neatly placing the finished ones on the table, and baking another portion in the oven. I don’t know about anyone, but I’ve always been eager to try Easter cake straight from the heat. But my grandmother did not allow it, she said that until the holiday came (and in our country this was considered when the grandmother returned home from church in the morning), you couldn’t try the cake. But then I just didn’t really want it.
When I started baking Easter cakes myself and saw how my little son was watching the process with anticipation, I started the habit of preparing a small test cake for him. I just put a piece of dough in a regular ceramic cup and bake. At the same time, we then try to see whether the cake turned out well or not.
I have several recipes for making Easter cake, this year I’m going to make honey Easter cake, a recipe with a photo of which I specially prepared for you. Such cakes turn out to be very tasty with a pleasant honey aroma, as well as airy and porous, since the dough always fits well.
This recipe makes 3 medium honey cakes.



Ingredients:
- premium wheat flour - 500 g,
- yeast (dry active) - 11 g,
- table chicken eggs (medium) - 3 pcs.,
- whole milk (warm) - 125 ml,
- granulated sugar - 120 g,
- honey - 2 tsp,
- butter (butter) - 100 g,
- salt - 0.5 tsp,
- raisins (seedless) - 100 g,
- vanillin - optional.

How to cook with photos step by step

How to make honey cake for Easter
We prepare the dough for Easter cakes using the sponge method, so first of all, pour 100 g of sifted wheat flour and dry yeast into a bowl. Next, add milk at body temperature and mix.




And then cover and leave the dough for 1-1.5 hours in a warm place.




The next stage is preparation for kneading. Separate the yolks from the whites, and then combine the yolks with granulated sugar, honey, as well as vanillin and salt and grind the mass thoroughly.






Using a mixer, beat the whites into a homogeneous fluffy mass.




Now let's introduce the dough.




And whipped whites into ground yolks.






Then add melted butter.




Knead everything until smooth and add the sifted flour, while kneading the dough.
Add washed and dried raisins.




Roll it into a ball and put it in a bowl, which we coat with oil.




Cover with a towel and wait for about an hour to rise.






During this time, we prepare the molds for the Easter cakes. If you have silicone molds, then you don’t need to grease them, but line the tin molds with oiled paper.
We tear off balls from the risen dough, knead them a little and put them in molds so that the amount of dough is up to half the volume of the mold.




Leave the dough in the molds for another hour until it rises completely.




And then put them in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Important - do not open the cabinet door for the first 20 minutes, otherwise the cakes will fall.




Remove the finished cakes with honey from the molds to cool on a towel.






And then we decorate with icing and sprinkles.




Bon appetit!




Try also

TIPS for beginners:
1. YEAST! look at the expiration date on the packaging!!! I always buy small bags - a large open bag can degrade the quality of the yeast.
2. Don’t forget to sift the FLOUR through a sieve.
3. PRODUCTS - we take everything strictly according to the recipe! You can reduce the amount of sugar. In this cake it is allowed to “shift” the flour - within reason, of course. It will still work out - the dough proofing time and baking time will increase!
4. Stir the OPAR well, let it rise! the time depends on the temperature in the room - now Easter is late, it’s warm outside, so an hour is enough for her. More than an hour is not necessary, the dough will settle, so take a look at how it behaves.
5. KNEADING THE DOUGH - butter is just at room temperature, do not heat it, otherwise the dough will take more flour. Just beat the whites until foamy (we’re not making meringue). Gradually add the egg mixture to the dough, stir it well at all stages of preparing the dough. The butter will remain in pieces for a bit, then when you add flour, it will mix well into the dough. Add flour in portions. The dough can be left periodically during kneading for 1 minute. Each time it will be more flexible and less sticky to your hands. Dough made with milk is always stickier than dough made with water. But when it sits for a bit, it becomes much more pleasant. At first, it is more convenient to knead the dough in a bowl, then you can transfer it to the table (you can LIGHTLY grease it with vegetable oil) and replace it well. The finished dough can be pulled out into a braid on the table. But it will still stick to the table a little.
Knead the dough well (so that it is homogeneous; we don’t need a tight ball that can be used to play football!) and set it to rise.
6. PROOFING THE DOUGH - don’t rush! let the dough rise well in volume. For this amount of dough, a bowl or 3-liter saucepan is suitable. At the end of proofing, it should occupy the entire area of ​​the container. If it’s a warm day, I put the dough on the windowsill in the sun and cover it with a towel on top. In winter, this dough will rise for at least 2 hours. The more sugar, eggs and butter, the more difficult it is for the yeast to work. And if it’s also cool in the room, then the fermentation process is delayed. Therefore, LET'S NOT HURRY!!! let yourself rise!
7. FORMING THE CAKES: Divide the well-risen dough into portions into molds. I have factory molds 800 ml, 750 ml and 650 ml. I often don't even oil them when I'm not making rims for height. Place a baker-shaped circle on the bottom of the mold. paper (I don’t lubricate it with oil - my paper is good). I divide the dough into three almost equal parts, roll each into a ball, and lower it into the mold. No need to knead the dough! During proofing and baking, the dough has the property of occupying the entire volume of the mold. For this cake mold, it is advisable to fill half the mold or a little less with dough (I always make balls, a little less than half of the molds)
8. PROOFING THE CAKES - put in a warm place (I’m in the sun, with a light kitchen towel on top) and wait, the dough should increase, occupy 2/3 of the height of the mold. Again, proofing time depends on the temperature and density of the dough. Don't forget to turn on the oven to preheat in advance.
9. BAKING CAKES - check the oven, maybe you need to turn down the heat a little. Place the molds with Easter cakes on the middle shelf in the oven: temp. 180-200 gr. C. Periodically, without opening, monitor the oven temperature. Small cakes can be ready in about 20 minutes. Do not open the door earlier - this will still not help the test! Check small cakes for readiness after 20 minutes, large ones after 30-35 minutes. Pierce the wood with a toothpick or skewer. for barbecue - it must remain dry! You can leave the finished cakes in the mold or let them cool slightly and carefully lay them out and roll them out of the mold onto a towel. If you don’t have experience, it’s better to leave the cake to cool in the mold. Freshly baked cake is very SOFT!! may break, especially in tall, thin forms.
GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR CAKES!!! If you have any questions, I will answer them all with pleasure!!!

This cake is unique in that it is baked with honey, without sugar. And without yolks - only on whites. It is a little drier than yolk cakes - a little closer to bread than to a sweet pastry. But it is also very, very tasty. And how fragrant it is thanks to the honey. Overall, a good option. Especially if you need to dispose of egg whites.

Ingredients for 4 small Easter cakes, 280 g each, mold diameter - 9 cm:

For the dough:

20 g fresh yeast
60 ml warm water
1 tbsp. honey (30 g)
50 g flour

For the test:

the whole dough
450 g flour
120 g honey
200 g egg whites (7 pcs from C-1 eggs)
2 tsp lemon zest
100 g butter at room temperature
1/4 tsp. salt
150 g raisins, pre-soaked in water or Cointreau

For the dough, we dilute yeast in warm water with honey. Add flour and mix until smooth. Leave for half an hour or an hour at room temperature until the dough doubles in volume.

Place flour, honey, lightly beaten egg whites, dough, salt and zest into a mixer bowl. Knead into a homogeneous dough.

Let it rest for 30 minutes. Then add the butter cut into pieces and knead until smooth.

Form the dough into a ball and leave to rise for 1.5-2 hours. In the middle of the time, knead the dough once - just deflate it with your fists.

Lightly squeeze the soaked raisins and add 1 tbsp. flour and mix.

Divide the risen dough into 4 parts. We stretch each one with our hands into a rectangle with a width of about a third of the height of the mold in which the cakes will be baked. Add raisins.