I am sharing with you another recipe for Easter cakes - today we will prepare them using the so-called Alexandria or Vienna dough. A very unexpected (for me personally) technology for kneading dough and a predictably fabulous result. Predictable because many housewives have been baking Alexandria Easter cakes for many years and are always satisfied with the finished baked goods. The most delicate crumb, very aromatic, juicy and rich in taste - in general, perfect, there’s no other way to say it!
Let me explain a little about what was unusual for me. The fact is that, as a rule, dough is made with the addition of flour, depending on the amount of which its thickness varies. And here there is no flour at all, not a gram! But there is a large amount of butter, which is part of the dough. This is the second thing that surprised me, because fats are usually introduced into the dough at the final stage, but here at the very beginning (and long before the flour).
The yeast dough for Alexandria Easter cakes is not much different from the dough for this kind of homemade baking: it is just as tender, very soft and sticks very much to your hands. There is no need to give in to the temptation and stuff the dough with flour to make it easier to mix - in this case, the finished baked goods will not be fluffy and airy. You can use whatever you want as additives and flavorings: I used lemon zest and vanillin for aroma, and light raisins for taste.
Ingredients:
Opara:
Main batch:
Icing:
Cooking the dish step by step with photos:
Here are all the products that are included in the recipe for Alexandria Easter cakes: premium wheat flour, baked milk, granulated sugar and powdered sugar, chicken eggs, butter, raisins, lemon juice and zest, fresh yeast, salt and vanillin (can be replaced with a teaspoon of vanilla Sahara). You can easily prepare baked milk yourself - on the stove or in a slow cooker (). I used medium-sized eggs (about 55 grams each), leaving 1 white for the glaze, and 2 whites and 3 yolks going into the dough. Choose any raisins - I have golden ones, they are sweet and very tasty. It is not necessary to use fresh (pressed) yeast - dry yeast is perfect (about 12 grams or 2 heaped teaspoons).
In the evening we will prepare the dough (if this mass can be called that). In a fairly large bowl, combine 3 egg yolks, 2 whites and 230 grams of granulated sugar. Mix everything thoroughly with a spoon or using a mixer (whisk) - let the sugar crystals dissolve.
Next, add 125 grams of soft butter, which we either cut into small pieces or simply break with a spoon. Mix it into the egg mixture.
During this time, the dough will rise and begin to fall, while an oil layer will be clearly visible on the surface, and fermentation will take place underneath it (many, many air bubbles). My dough fermented for 9 hours.
It's time to move on to kneading the dough for our Alexandria Easter cakes. Select a suitable container and pour the dough into it. Add 600 grams (you may need a little more or a little less depending on the moisture content of the flour) of sifted premium wheat flour, mixed with a pinch of vanillin and a quarter teaspoon of fine table salt. Immediately add 1 tablespoon of chopped lemon (or orange, if you like) zest - this is about 1 large lemon.
Mix all the ingredients to form a sticky cake dough. It is not like yeast dough for bread - dough for Easter cakes is much more tender and sticks to your hands very much. Now it’s time to add 100 grams of raisins, which must first be washed and dried. If the raisins are too dry, soak them in water for 10-15 minutes and then dry thoroughly.
Knead the dough for about 10 minutes with your hands, which can be slightly oiled. Round the dough, cover the bowl with cling film or cover with a towel and leave to ferment in a warm place for 1.5 hours. Where is the best place for the dough to ferment and what does a warm place mean? There are several options. First of all, in the oven with the light on (it turns out to be approximately 28-30 degrees - the ideal temperature for fermenting yeast dough). Then cover the bowl with the dough with cling film or cover it with a towel made of natural fabric (linen is best) so that the surface does not become airy and crusty. You can also let the dough ferment in the microwave, in which you first bring a glass of water to a boil. The dough will rise when the door is closed, and the glass will stand there. Then there is no need to cover the bowl with anything, since the water will evaporate, thereby maintaining the necessary humidity. Just make sure that no one accidentally turns on the microwave, otherwise the dough will disappear and there will be no cakes.
After about an hour and a half, the yeast dough will at least double in size, and maybe more. Gently knead it and place it in baking dishes.
I got enough dough for 3 Easter cakes. Each piece weighs 460 grams. I used paper forms (12 centimeters at the bottom and 10 centimeters in height). It is important to apply the dough no more than half the volume so that the cakes do not run away during the baking process. Cover the dough with cling film to prevent the dough from becoming airy and crusty. Leave to proof in a warm place until the dough has risen one and a half to two times. It took me 1.5 hours.
Once I found a recipe on the Internet: “Alexandria Easter cake dough is just the bomb!” Naturally, I couldn’t pass by and tried it out. This recipe makes classic Easter cakes. The dough rises very well, I would say, they are distinguished by increased airiness. Perhaps it’s because the dough is made in a non-standard way - it sits longer than in other recipes. At the same time, a delicate creamy taste. The dough is tender and soft. And today I will tell you how to make Alexandrian Easter cake dough step by step.
Please note that the recipe is for a large number of Easter cakes. I made one fifth of the dough, and the result was a large cake, weighing about 1 kg. So calculate your strength; from one fifth of the ingredients you will get one very large Alexandrian Easter cake or three medium ones. But, if you bake on an industrial scale and give gifts to all your relatives (or make cakes to order), then you can safely bake about 5 kg of cakes from one batch of Alexandrian dough, so this is also a bomb in terms of volume!
I made Easter cakes using this recipe last year and really enjoyed them. Therefore, I will cook it for Easter 2018. Because it turned out very tasty, and my friends tried it and wrote good reviews.
Alexandria Easter cake stays fresh for a long time. And the longer it takes, the tastier it becomes!
Alexandria Easter cake dough step by step at home
Products:
baked milk - 1 liter,
sugar - 1 kg,
butter - half a kilogram,
eggs - 10 pcs.,
yolks - 3 pcs.,
pressed yeast - 150 g,
salt - 1 tsp,
raisins - 200 gr.,
vanilla sugar - 3 sachets or vanillin,
cognac - 2 tbsp. l.,
flour - 2.5 kg
How to bake Easter cake in the oven
- Beat the eggs and yolks a little, add the butter cut into pieces, add sugar. Break the yeast into small pieces and also add to the dough. Heat the baked milk to a pleasant temperature and pour it in.
2. Leave to rise in a warm place for 10-12 hours (it’s convenient to leave overnight).
3. When the dough rises, add salt, raisins previously soaked in boiling water, vanilla sugar, and cognac. Mix. Sift the flour.
4. Knead the dough, greasing your hands with vegetable oil if necessary. The dough should be soft and sticky.
5. Leave again in a warm place for an hour and a half so that the Alexandria dough rises. Then knead and place in the mold, I laid out less than half of the mold.
6. Leave to proof. The dough will rise again.
7. Place in a cold oven. Baking time depends on the size of the pan. In general, the algorithm is as follows: turn on 100 degrees, bake for 10 minutes. Then turn on 150 degrees and bake for 15 minutes. And increase to 200 and bake for another 15 minutes. Do not open the oven during this time. Then check with a wooden skewer for doneness. For small and medium-sized Easter cakes, this time is usually enough. But this one is gigantic, and the skewer turned out to be a little damp. Therefore, I left it for another 15 minutes at a temperature of 200. But watch now, sniff the air so that there are no burnt notes. If the top of the cake has already become quite crispy, and baking is not yet finished, then place wet parchment on top (which is what I did). When finished baking, turn off the oven and leave the cake in it for 40 minutes. When you take it out, put it on its side, it should cool on its side, you can turn it from side to side. Kulich is ready!
A distinctive feature of the preparation of Alexandrian Easter cake is that it is prepared exclusively with baked milk. Thanks to this, the cake acquires a very pleasant subtle creamy aroma, complemented by citrus notes due to the addition of lemon zest to the dough. It turns out to be a very interesting combination of flavors. The texture of Alexandria Easter cake is finely porous, velvety, and the crumb is elastic.
The so-called Alexandrian dough for this Easter cake is prepared in a rather interesting way. The fact is that the dough for it does not ripen for half an hour, as for ordinary Easter cakes, but for several hours. Usually the dough for Alexandrian Easter cakes is left overnight so that in the morning you can start preparing this wonderful pastry.
It is also customary to add butter and eggs to the Alexandrian dough (and not later to the dough), which is also not typical for this type of baking. But the result, as they say, is obvious. Alexandria Easter cakes turn out excellent.
Cooking time: 120 minutes
Number of servings – 3Ingredients for the dough:
- 125 g butter
- 230 g sugar
- 250 ml baked milk
- 2 eggs and 1 yolk (we will leave 1 white for glaze)
- 35 g compressed yeast
Ingredients for the dough:
- the whole dough
- 100 g raisins
- zest of one lemon
- 0.3 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla sugar
- 600 g flour
Alexandria Easter cake step by step with photo
Preparing the dough for the Alexandria dough. Do not forget that the dough will take a long time to mature, from 8 hours, so it is better to prepare it in the evening and leave it overnight. All ingredients for preparing the dough should be at room temperature, and the butter should be soft and melted.
Beat 2 eggs and one yolk with 230 g of sugar into a homogeneous whitish mass.
Sugar should completely dissolve in the egg mass.
Add soft melted butter and baked milk to the egg-sugar mixture. Using a mixer, mix the butter into the total mass.
Now add 35 g of compressed yeast. We help them “disperse” with our hands. As soon as the yeast gets into a humid environment, it immediately begins to melt.
Pass the mixer through the mixture again. Cover the bowl with the dough with cling film. The dough should not be left in the cold or in a draft.
And this is what the dough for Alexandrian Easter cake looks like 4 hours after the start of its preparation. A dense oily “cap” has formed on the surface of the dough.
Dough in the morning. Visually, the dough has changed a lot, a layer of oil is clearly visible on top, and the top itself has sagged.
Since the dough is ready, we can safely proceed to preparing the dough for Alexandria Easter cake. Add half of all the flour to the dough and mix the dough with a spoon.
A very interesting picture was formed after “opening” the top of the dough while mixing it with the first portion of flour. An abundance of foam was hidden under the oil layer.
Add the remaining flour and knead a homogeneous, non-sticky dough on the table. You may need another 50 grams of flour to sprinkle on the work surface.
Raisins, pre-soaked for 30 minutes in hot water, then dried with a napkin, are added to the dough. We also remove the zest from one lemon and add it after the raisins.
Stir the raisins and zest into the dough, which is then rolled into a ball and placed in a large bowl or pan greased with sunflower oil. Cover the top of the pan with cling film and leave the dough to proof in a warm place. I always leave the dough in an oven preheated to 50 degrees.
After 1.5 hours, the dough has increased in volume by at least 2.5 times. Now you can begin to form the Alexandrian Easter cakes.
I have ready-made paper forms for baking Easter cakes. Fill the forms to less than half their height. We try to give the “caps” a beautiful shape.
The dough in the molds also needs time to proof, about an hour. During this time, the dough will reach the height of the mold.
The dough for Alexandria Easter cake needs to be prepared in advance, as it needs to sit for 10-12 hours. I did this this evening. Add sugar to warm baked milk and crumble the yeast, beat the eggs in a bowl with a whisk and also add them to the milk mixture. Add soft butter there in pieces. Stir the mixture a little with a spatula, cover and put in a warm place. In the morning the dough is ready.
Add yolks, salt to the dough, sift all the flour. Add vanillin and cognac.
Lightly mix the dough, add pre-steamed raisins, as well as goji berries. You can add candied fruits.
Mix the dough well. It will be viscous and slightly sticky, so moisten your fingers with vegetable oil. Next, cover the dough and put it back in a warm place to rise for 1.5 hours.
After this time, distribute the dough into the molds, filling them 2/3 of the volume. From this quantity I got 8 small cakes. Let the dough rise in the pans to the very top.
Place the Alexandria Easter cakes in the oven, preheated to 160 degrees, bake for 20 minutes, then increase the temperature to 180 degrees and bake for another 10 minutes. Readiness can be checked using a wooden skewer. Place the cakes on their side on a towel and cool, turning occasionally, cover with a towel.
Happy Easter to you!
Recipe for making Easter cake using Alexandria dough. The famous Alexandria Easter cake always turns out very tasty, with a delicate crumb, little porosity and does not crumble at all. The cake prepared according to this recipe turns out to be unusually aromatic, sweet, one might say melts in your mouth - it is precisely for these magical qualities that housewives love to prepare it for the Easter table.
Kulich is prepared with baked milk, butter and raw yeast. The Alexandrian dough is prepared as follows: first, the dough is infused for about 8–12 hours, and then mixed with flour and tasty additions (dried fruits, candied fruits, dried berries). The taste of Alexandria Easter cake is sweetish with a rich aroma and yeast flavor. If you don’t like too sweet baked goods, you can safely reduce the amount of sugar by half.
Required ingredients:
350 g sugar;
50 g fresh yeast;
850 – 900 g wheat flour;
400 ml. baked milk (warm);
180 – 200 g butter (softened);
1 teaspoon of salt (without a slide);
A glass of raisins;
A glass of dried apricots.
Glaze:
2 egg whites + 200 g powdered sugar + 1 tbsp. spoon of lemon juice.
How to cook:
Since Alexandria dough is prepared with raw yeast, it needs to be left for 8 to 12 hours. The dough is prepared using dough, which is mixed with baked milk, eggs, yeast, sugar and without adding flour. Prepare all ingredients ahead of time so they are at room temperature (especially the butter). It is most convenient to knead the dough overnight and continue cooking in the morning.
In a separate cup, slightly warm the baked milk and dissolve the raw yeast in it.
In another cup, for mixing the dough, break 4 eggs, and divide two into whites and yolks. Place the whites in the refrigerator; we will need them to prepare the glaze. Pour sugar into the eggs and mix the mixture with a whisk, whisk until the sugar dissolves.
Add softened butter to the eggs and stir it into the egg mixture. If your butter is not soft enough, you can simply chop it into small pieces with a knife.
Then pour the milk and yeast into the mixing bowl and whisk in. There is no point in beating the dough until it has a homogeneous consistency; just stirring is enough. Cover the cup with the dough with cellophane or cling film and leave to steep at room temperature overnight (you can leave the cup on the kitchen counter).
During this time, the dough in the cup will rise and fall again. In it you will see, as it were, two layers; the first will look like an oil cap, and the second consists of small bubbles - this means that the dough is already active for further work.
Prepare the selected dried fruits in advance (I used raisins and dried apricots). Rinse the dried fruits in warm water, dry them with a paper towel and, if necessary, chop them into small pieces with a knife. Place the filling in a cup with the dough, add salt and begin adding flour in small portions. You can knead the dough first with a large spoon, and then with your hands greased with vegetable oil. The finished dough is viscous and sticky; there is no need to weigh it down with flour. My dough took 870 g, yours may take a little more or less, so the dough is kneaded with your hands, this way you can better feel its consistency.
Place the finished Alexandria dough into a large (oiled) pan. Cover the container with cellophane and put it in a warm place to rise for 1.5 - 2 hours, it should increase in size at least three times. I always leave the dough in the oven.
As you can see, the dough rises very well and try not to move too far away from it, otherwise it may run away (like mine).
Next, grease your hands with vegetable oil, separate the dough in small portions and place in prepared molds. I have paper and metal forms of different sizes. Fill the molds about 2/3, but not more than half - this will be enough for rising and further baking.
Place the molds with the dough in a warm place for another 1 - 1.5 hours. I recommend putting them in the oven or microwave, but be sure to place a cup or glass of warm water. Moisture is needed so that the cakes do not become windy during proofing and do not become crusty. The risen dough should not reach the edge of the pan; it is advisable to leave about 2 cm of free space.
Preheat the oven to 160 - 170 degrees.
Place the cakes in the preheated oven. Baking time varies greatly for everyone, it all depends on the oven itself and the size of the molds. You need to bake the cakes until the toothpick is dry and has a pleasant golden (brown) color. Many housewives take from 30 to 50 minutes, I baked for 30 minutes and my cakes were completely baked.
While the Alexandria Easter cakes are cooling, prepare the glaze. To prepare the glaze, remove the reserved egg whites from the refrigerator and beat them with powdered sugar using a mixer. Then add a spoonful of lemon juice and continue whisking for another minute. This glaze will not be very stable; it will run down a little. If you need a stable and strong glaze, then add more powdered sugar and reduce the amount of lemon juice to 1 teaspoon.
Using a spoon, coat the cakes with glaze, allowing some of the glaze to drip off the edges.
For tall cakes, I decided to make the icing thinner and added another 1 teaspoon of lemon juice. Now the glaze flows down the walls of the cakes even more appetizingly.
Sprinkle the finished cakes with decorative decorations on top, let the glaze dry and let the cakes themselves brew. I didn’t wait for the Easter cakes to sit completely, and cut one to show you how the baked Alexandria Easter cake turns out. As you can see, it is completely baked, rises well, is quite dense and does not crumble.
