BEST RUSSIAN EASTER BAKE RECIPES

Add eggs into your stand mixer, you can also do this by hand and a bowl and a whisk. Then we're going to add sugar and melted butter, make sure that it's not hot. Then add sour cream and warm milk, vanilla extract and then add flour. I have sifted my flour beforehand. We're going to gently mix everything together on the low speed until the ingredients are combined and then add your dry active yeast inside and give this another gentle mix then we're going to take the mixture covered with a towel and leave it in a warm place to proof for about two hours after two hours you can see that the mixture has been proving we're going to add it back into our stand mixer make sure you get all of it then we're going to add the rest of the flour and mix that all together the dough will start to combine and come together then we're going to add more flour and keep adding a little bit of flour at a time you might need to add more or less flour depends on the quality and what kind of flour you're using in your country so just have to look out for the dough the dough needs to not be too sticky the dough still needs to be quite soft but not stick to your hands too much. Then we're going to add some cranberries and some raisins and mix that in again. Gently make sure that it's all spread evenly and you can see now I'm taking my dough off the hook and it doesn't really stick to my hand. There might be still a little bit of stickiness but that's okay as long as it's not too much. Just knead it in your bowl and we're going to cover this with damp towel and leave it to proof again for about one to two hours. Once your dough has proven it will double in size or triple depending. I am using these beautiful baking molds but feel free to use whatever you want. Divide your dough evenly into two baking molds and try not to mix it or stamp it down too much. We're gonna leave the dough and let it rise again in a warm place for another hour or so until the molds are almost full. Next we're going to make our icing so add your icing sugar into a bowl or a jug and you can see I'm struggling here. Then add lemon juice and mix that together and then add a little bit of hot water to loosen the mixture and you will see it becomes nice and smooth. You can control the consistency of your icing so if you like it thicker you can add more icing sugar if you like it thinner you add more water. Once your molds have filled up we're going to bake these in the preheated oven for about 30 to 35 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit and we want to cook them until the top is nice and golden brown and then let them cool down in room temperature before you take the paper off. Next I'm going to loosen the cake from the mold and they have been cooling down for about half an hour and we just want to make sure that you don't rip into the cake you can also keep them in the cake mold if you wish then gently tear the cake mold around and just go around until you loosen the cake completely and I always keep the bottom because it's hard to take that off and then add your icing sugar on top and move it around and you can decide how much icing you want to put on the cake as well then I'm gonna add some sprinkles it's traditional that you have some colorful sprinkles on top but again you don't have to do that you can add anything else that you want this is how you make delicious Russian Easter bread pascha it's really really soft I have warmed up my milk to lukewarm and we're going to add sugar fast-action dry yeast in there just leave it for a couple of minutes so it starts to bubble up in a different bowl add your cottage cheese sugar vanilla extract lemon juice and some lemon zest give it all a really good mix you can see our yeast is nice and activated add your yeast into a bowl with your milk mixture melted butter I'm going to add half of the flour now and then mix it through and then add another half add your dough onto a floured surface and we're just gonna knead it few times and then place it back into your bowl and leave it to rise okay look at that dough is doubled in size beautiful so we're just gonna take it out and place it onto a floured surface and add a bit more flour on top roll out your dough add your cottage cheese filling right in the middle make the same cuts from both sides and then fold the dough on top making nice pattern just like that. Put your pastry onto a baking dish with some parchment paper and coat it with some egg wash. Leave it aside so it can rise for another 20 minutes. What we're gonna do is soak our raisins and cranberries and our orange and lemon peel with some rum or cognac. You know how to do this if you don't want to you can just soak them in orange juice for example or lemon juice. Just mix everything together and make sure they're nice and soaked and you want to set them aside for a few hours this can be done you know a day in advance or so next we're gonna make our starter so into your warm milk add yeast and I'm using instant fast action yeast so that means it's very quick and just raises a lot faster and better then add sugar mix everything together and then you want to add flour. So mix everything together until it's nice and smooth and we're going to place this mixture away to prove. I like to wrap it in cling film and set it aside for about 45 minutes or so. Now you can see it has proved. It's pretty much doubled in size and you will see these little sort of bubbles on top. Now it's time to drain our raisin mix. So just place them on a paper towel and just soak up any excess moisture. You can do this several times and once they're dry it's really important that we're going to add flour. If you don't add flour to the dried fruit whenever you bake any sort of breads or brioche type buns they will sink to the bottom so it's really important that you use flour this way they will stay in the dough. Now it's time to make our dough so add your egg yolks and sugar into your stand mixer you can also do this with just a normal whisk and we're going to whisk this for a couple of minutes until the eggs are nice and fluffy about five to eight minutes i also like to add some vanilla extract but this is completely optional the eggs should become sort of light and fluffy and you'll see they will change in color here i have some cottage cheese this is dry cottage cheese called twaróg you can also use farmer's cheese or quark it's completely up to you or even ricotta and you just wanna blitz this through until it's nice and smooth so um you can also use cream cheese as well if you don't have cottage cheese so just uh with a hand blender puree the mixture through just to make sure it's nice and smooth it should look just like that and then we're going to add this into our egg mixture and then i'm going to add melted butter and it's already been cooled down so make sure you melt your butter before you add it into your dough and you're going to whisk this for several minutes until it's nice and creamy then i'm going to add my yeast mixture that has been proving so add all of that together next you want to combine your cocoa powder together with your flour i'm adding some cinnamon some mixed spice and a bit of nutmeg you can use any spices that you like here to be honest as this bread can be as festive as you like mix everything together until it's nice and mixed and we're going to add all of it into our dough so just add all of the mix together with salt as well into your bowl and make sure you change it a dough hook and mix everything together until your dough sort of starts to come together so just keep mixing until it's nice and even and very very smooth and elastic you will see it will start to fall off your dough hook if you don't have a kitchen aid you can do this by hand this will probably take you about 10 to 15 minutes of kneading so just be patient and then once your dough is done it's very very sticky you might want to flour the surface and just stretch out the dough and then I'm gonna add my dried fruit mix inside and then I'm adding also some cacao nibs these are dark chocolate cacao nibs they're not sweet so they do add that extra crunch and chocolate nut chocolatey sort of taste to this gruelage so just mix all of that together you kind of fold it in inside and then you want to just kind of use your hands and make sure that the all your dried fruit and cacao nibs have been sort of evenly distributed you might need to add some more flour on top and on the side and just keep kneading it until you feel that they are all mixed in properly and it's nice and soft don't add too much more flour as it will become too rough but just the enough amount to make sure it's all nice and mixed in you want to add a bit of oil into your bowl and then place your dough inside and we're gonna cover it in cling film and put it to proof for about one hour or maybe even two depending on your kitchen you want the dough to raise for about one and a half to two times more now you can see my dough has risen it looks really really nice and chocolatey and puffy and you can see all the dried fruit has spread out in different locations which is good exactly what we wanted take your dough sort of punch it through um you want to get rid of any air for now and at this point it's become really really nice and easy to work with and i'm going to divide this between two um two paper sort of molds you can get these online and i'll leave all the measurements how big they were just in case because if your molds are smaller or bigger then you might want to add less or more so this is really important so just add those in and press kind of inside make sure it's nice and sticky there you then want to place these again to proof for about one hour or so until they raise almost to the very top and there they are guys they have risen pretty much all the way to the top my molds are probably a bit too big and now it's time to bake these oh my gosh i can't wait it's been a while so once they're baked you'll first of all you'll smell them and then you will see they'll come out nice and beautiful and chocolatey i do like to eat them straight away as they are so so moist and delicious when they're hot you can take off the paper wrapping around and there you go guys look at that i'm also using some pink icing so just spread that around and this is just icing sugar with milk you can use whatever icing that you want on your pasta bread and i'm decorating it with some shaved chocolate bits as well and look at that this is our delicious chocolate pasta bread and i'm gonna of course show you how it looks inside as this is the most important just look at that all the fruit is separated it's very very soft when you press on it and it's very chocolatey it's really really delicious sort of spicy spiced bread very very nice with jam or butter and perfect for Easter I hope you enjoyed this video guys thanks so much for watching into a bowl add 1 cup of warm water, squeeze about 2 tablespoons of honey, add your yeast. We're just going to mix it through. You can see that my yeast is nice and already starting to activate. Place your yeast into your stand mixer, add sugar, add vanilla extract, add your eggs and melted butter. Add 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, add your cottage cheese raisins and your walnuts start adding your flour and we're going to add one cup at a time and keep mixing it through so if you need to add more flour if you feel that the dough is still very sticky I think this is quite good I've added just a little bit more we're going to transfer that into our bowl and I've oiled it with some vegetable oil covering your dough with a damp towel and we're going to leave it to rise for about one hour and a half so you can see my dough has doubled in size look at that oh my god so we're gonna just punch the dough and then put it back into the bowl roll it out and let it rise for another half an hour once your dough has risen for the second time we're just gonna divide this into six balls once you have your six equal balls of the dough we're going to roll out three of them at the same time so we're gonna do this like a hair braid pinch the both sides here three of them and then we're just gonna move one up here and then the other there and we're going to coat it with some egg wash and then let it rise for another 20 minutes