Easter recipes from Panasonic

Easter cakes recipes

Lent radically changed the way people live. Entertainment was prohibited, public and entertainment places did not function. The streets were getting quieter, there were practically no drunks to be seen. The Lenten table consisted mainly of cabbage and mushrooms. Fish and vegetable oil were allowed only on Sundays and holidays. Sweets include lean sugar, sun-dried apples and raisins. The most severe week of fasting is the last, Passionate. People, tired of silence and holiness, began to prepare for the holiday ...

The holiday of the Bright Resurrection of the Lord, one of the most beloved in Russia. In towns and villages, everything was in motion: there were pre-Easter household chores. Everyone, young and old, cleaned houses, shook yards, went to the bathhouse. Especially for the holiday, lilies of the valley, daisies and lilacs were grown in greenhouses. Countless goods were brought from the surrounding villages - chickens, geese, turkeys, beef, pork hams. The barrels in the wine cellars were emptied - during the festive week, almost all supplies were drunk. People bought provisions, preparing Easter dinner ahead of time. Easter was celebrated for a long time: guests could come in at any moment, and the greatest shame for the hostess was the poor treat. The table was laid all day: one could approach it at any moment.

Suvorova A.P. "Easter table", still life, 1998, oil on canvas

They cooked a lot, the Russian Easter table was traditionally rich and varied. In wealthy families, up to 40 dishes were served - according to the number of days of Great Lent. The villages were limited to fried turkey, Easter meat borsch, and snacks. In the southern regions, a traditional Greek soup made of liver was cooked - "magiritsu". Fish dishes were out of favor. In cities, baked and fried hams, veal, all kinds of jellied and jellied meat, pates, rolls were most often put on the table. Most of the dishes were served cold. This made it possible for the hostess not to serve the guests and not follow the cooks, but to rejoice and have fun with everyone.

Festive Easter was also prepared in advance. The recipe was quite complicated: the cottage cheese was passed through a sieve twice, softened butter and sour cream were added. Powdered sugar was ground white with egg yolks, whipped whites were mixed in. They also whipped the cream, put candied fruit and raisins, vanilla and spices.

Festive curd Easter

The mass was stirred with a special wooden spatula, always in one direction. The finished Easter was laid out in wooden forms, covered with a plate, and oppression was put to remove excess moisture. Easter matured for two or three days in the cellar.

Wooden carvings for Easter were original, they were passed down in families as the greatest jewels by inheritance, from mother to daughter.

Wooden carved form for Easter

Eggs were also painted at the same time. For dyeing, onion peels were used, which were carefully collected and dried for a whole year. In richer homes, eggs were boiled along with scraps of bright silk. With thin brushes, simple drawings and ornaments were applied to the eggs. Each region had its own ornaments, they practically did not repeat. Colored eggs were usually placed in upper rooms or dining rooms in a prominent place, on the windowsill. They were treated to numerous guests, carried out to the poor.

The tradition of dyeing eggs goes back to ancient times

But the main Easter treat is still a cake, a special, festive holy bread. It was baked from butter yeast dough. The secrets of baking have also been passed down from generation to generation. And today Easter cakes prepared according to old recipes are delicious and do not stale for a long time. There was a belief: if the cake was a success, then things would be in order for the whole year. Each hostess wanted her cake to be the best, most beautiful.They did not spare anything for the festive cake, the hostesses put only the best products into it. Eggs, butter, raisins, nuts, candied fruits, lemon zest were added to the dough. For the aroma, they used a few drops of port or cognac, nutmeg, vanilla.

Easter cakes have always been richly decorated. Poured with icing or fondant, sprinkled with icing sugar, decorated with colored millet. This multi-colored dressing was called "nonparelle". Nuts or raisins were used to spread the image of the cross and the letter "ХВ" - Christ is Risen!

Easter cakes are the main Easter decoration

The dough was always kneaded a lot because the families were large, in some there were up to twenty people. Kulich, on the other hand, ate the whole festive week - it was necessary that they had enough for their guests and left for the guests. The dough was placed in large tubs, baked in bucket forms. The cake dough is wayward, it rose easily, but just as easily fell off. Sudden temperature changes, drafts, even slamming doors - everything could ruin the holiday. Therefore, they kneaded on the night from Thursday to Friday when the children were asleep. They baked cakes all Friday, and on Saturday they brought them to the church to bless them.

Easter cakes were also sold in bakeries and bakeries. But no matter how good they were, in Russia it was always customary to make your own, home. It was not appropriate to carry a purchased cake to consecrate. Batiushka could be angry!

Ready-made Easter cakes sometimes even come from Valentino

Even the communist government was unable to eradicate age-old traditions. In the darkest times in the pre-Easter week in grocery stores and bakeries appeared on sale sparingly sprinkled with nuts and powdered sugar "Spring Cup". Easter cakes, as in the past, were mostly baked at home. In villages - in Russian stoves still preserved in some places, in city apartments - in gas stove ovens. Of course, in this case, forms the size of a bucket were excluded, ordinary aluminum pots were used.

Now, when technical progress has stepped forward, bread machines are used for baking. We tried the Panasonic bread maker for this purpose. C-255.

Panasonic Bread Maker C-255

Almost all manufacturers of modern household appliances try to take into account the peculiarities of the Russian national market. Many microwave ovens are supplied with special Russian cook programs. Manufacturers of bread makers are not lagging behind. Now they can make dough not only for pizza, but also for national Russian dishes - dumplings and dumplings.

Easter cake occupies a special place in baking programs.

The recipe offered to the consumer by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd is pretty straightforward. But this is quite an Easter recipe, in which nothing was spared. You need to put a lot of butter, eggs, muffins in the dough. As in the ancient recipes.

I decided to try this recipe:

Dry tremors - 2.5 tsp.
Wheat flour - 450 g.
Salt - 0.5 tsp.
Eggs - 4 pcs.
Sugar - 4 tbsp. l.
Vanillin - 1 tsp
Butter - 100 g.
Citrus juice - 50 ml.
Raisins, candied fruits and nuts - a complete dispenser.

The recipe struck me as quite plausible. A lot of eggs means that the dough will turn out to be rich.

Lots of eggs - the dough will be rich

But after a little thought, I replaced some ingredients. At first, instead of citrus juice, I took the usual 30 percent cream. The cream in the kulich seemed more appropriate to me. But since the citrus scent does not at all contradict the tradition, in addition to the cream, I decided to add the zest removed from one lemon.

Lemon zest

And to the raisins and candied fruits I mixed a little dried fruit cut into small pieces. I decided not to put the nuts at all, the rigid elements in the air test seemed to me not quite the right decision.

The manufacturer recommended baking the cake according to the dietary bread program, in the “baking with raisins” mode. In this mode, the dispenser will automatically add raisins and candied fruits to the dough at the right time. But after thinking it over, I decided to slightly modify the program. Bread makers of the Panasonic family are a little different from their sisters.All programs are designed for "temperature equalization" before starting mixing. I'm not sure if this "alignment" is needed at all. After all, food at room temperature is usually placed in a container. In extreme cases, the temperature is leveled out at the same time as the first batch. I decided to pre-knead the dough in the "dumplings dough" program. And only after that turn on the "diet bread" baking program. Thus, the hour that is allotted to equalize the temperature, my dough will rise further. The cake dough is very rich, heavy, and usually takes a long time to suit. An extra hour will only do him good. As it turned out later, I was right.

So, I put 4 eggs in the mold, measured 450 grams of flour on the scales, and put them in the mold as well.

450 grams of flour

The recipe required one hundred grams of butter. I also measured them on the scales.

It is quite easy to measure 100 grams of butter on a scale.

I put all the ingredients in the mold and turned on the bread maker.

The bread maker is ready to be switched on

The paddle spun, slowly at first, then faster. There is no viewing window in the Panasonic bread maker, so I risked opening the lid to see what was happening there. In fact, you should not do this, the dough for cakes could very much become capricious and fall off. But the curiosity was stronger, and I took a chance. A not too thick dense bun rolled along the bottom of the mold, sometimes sticking to the walls. I was scared that the dough was watery, and that the top of the cake would fall off during baking. Is the cream to blame for this? But I decided not to interrupt the process, not to add flour, but still wait for the results.

Kneading in the "Dumplings dough" mode is over. I turned on the diet bread program, set the raisin baking setting, chose the size of the loaf - XL, and turned on the bread maker. The crust color selection is not possible with this program. The display shows the cooking time - 5 hours.

Bread Maker Display

The dough began to rise. In due time somewhere an hour later, the engine started. The dough is kneaded again. About three minutes before the end of the batch, there was a click. This opened the dispenser, raisins and dried fruits spilled into the dough. The kneading continued. An hour before the end of the program, a familiar smell was heard. The heating elements turned on, the machine proceeded to the most important procedure - baking. And now a sufficiently loud sound signal announced the end of the program. The cake was ready. Just in case, I waited another 20 minutes for the cake to cool down a little, and lifted the lid. The cake rose perfectly. The crust, however, burst a little. Not scary, it can be easily masked with glaze. But in my opinion, the crust came out too ruddy. No, not that it was burnt, but it was darkish. There was no smell, the best indicator of burning. It smelled of vanilla and a little lemon. The cake dough is made sweet, according to the recipe it was supposed to put 4 tablespoons of sugar. That's exactly what I put in.

The crust is too ruddy

It looks like sugar was the culprit for this brown blush. It is a pity that the crust color cannot be changed in the dietary bread program.

Now we need to decorate the cake with icing. Beauty recipes are usually different for everyone. Someone pours melted white chocolate over the cake, someone creamy fudge someone sprinkles with icing sugar. I usually make the frosting with beaten egg whites and fine sugar or powdered sugar. For taste and smell, I add a teaspoon of brandy, lemon juice or a spoonful of cocoa powder. This mixture spreads quite easily, does not drip or crack. But the cake decorated with proteins must be dried in the oven for several minutes. Otherwise the glaze remains sticky. I didn't want to put the cake baked in a bread maker in the oven. For another recipe, I turned to the guru of home economics - Elena Molokhovets, according to whose Holy Book more than one generation of housewives learned to cook. I chose a fairly simple recipe for the rum frosting. Moreover, there was a bottle of white Baccardi rum in the bar.

Glaze with rum from Elena Molokhovets (recipe number 1022)

1/4 pound finest sugar
3/4 spoon of rum,
1/2 lemon juice
or lemon salt 1/2 grain of a pea,
or 3—4 drops of Rhine vinegar.

I ground 115 grams of powdered sugar with rum in a cup, and added lemon juice.

Glaze pounded in a cup

The mixture turned out to be quite viscous. I put it on the cake, leveled it with a knife, then with a napkin. The glaze froze before my eyes.

The glaze froze before my eyes

And the decorations were not ready yet! I quickly chopped up the almonds, took out the raisins and colored sugar balls, which I usually use instead of the traditional colored millet. There was no time to lay out the ornaments - the glaze turned into a crust. I just sprinkled the cake with the mixture. The raisins stuck somehow, but the balls and almonds rolled onto the plate. I had to moisten the surface with a damp brush and sprinkle again. This time all the decorations remained in their place.

Raisins, almonds and sugar balls decorated the cake

The cake turned out to be beautiful! But how tasty it is, we learn by cutting it on Easter night. But I am sure that everything will be festive and magical!

recommends!

Happy Holidays!

Kira Vorontsova,

Panasonic bread makers on the forum