What day is Easter cake baked? Easter cakes should be baked on certain days of Holy Week

When Easter cakes are baked: what you need to know On the eve of Easter, Easter cakes are baked even in families that do not consider themselves believers. According to the statistics of past years, every fourth atheist decides to cook Easter cake, colored eggs and some other typical dishes for Easter. At the same time, some even go to church to bless Easter cakes and eggs. Knowing when Easter cakes are baked is necessary in order to be in time for the church service. And if they are not going to consecrate food for Easter, you can cook everything even in Bright Sunday. But baking Easter cakes requires knowledge of certain subtleties, regardless of when they are baked.

If the owners of the house are preparing to go to the Easter service, it is necessary to calculate the cooking time in advance. By the time they leave the house with Easter cakes, they should cool completely, and the icing on them should harden. Eggs should be painted in the morning on Great (aka Clean) Thursday. Easter cakes are baked on Saturday morning. The consecration takes place either on Saturday evening or on Sunday early in the morning. But if you expect that with a basket they go to the evening service, which then turns into an all-night service, you need to prepare for everything in advance. The cooking time of Easter cakes varies, and depends on the recipe. The classic yeast dough for Easter cake, which is suitable twice and kneaded by hand for a long time, is cooked for five to six hours. Then the Easter cakes are baked and after the oven they cool down. Take out hot cakes Fresh air it is forbidden. Easter falls on a fairly cold time of the year, and the uncooled muffin will quickly become stale in the air. There are recipes according to which the preparation of Easter cakes takes more or less time. When calculating the time, it is usually considered that at least two hours must pass after the cake is taken out of the oven. But it is better if four to six hours pass from the moment the glaze is applied to the start of all other manipulations with it. In the recipes for Easter cakes, everything is usually specified necessary actions. But for the hostess who bakes Easter cakes for the first time in her life, there are many unknown nuances. So, the dough for Easter cakes does not tolerate haste and careless handling. It can fall from drafts and from sharp shakes. But do not be afraid that once you stumble with the test in your hands, the result can no longer be achieved. As a rule, the dough does not fit well when someone constantly enters the room, slamming the doors. Pledge of lush dough in good flour. For Easter cakes, flour of the highest grade, moderately rested, is used. Yeast dough made from freshly ground flour does not fit well, and may fall or crack during baking. The flour is sifted so that its particles disperse better in the dough. It is better to sift the flour twice. The rest of the products are also prepared before being added to the dough. What was stored in the refrigerator needs to be warmed up a little. The cottage cheese is crushed so that inhomogeneous lumps do not form in the dough that prevent it from approaching. Raisins and other additives are pre-mixed with a small amount of flour, then they will be distributed more evenly in the dough. The baking dish should be made of thin metal. Tin molds are suitable, special and made from coffee cans, as well as steel and aluminum. Special refractory glass for baking is also acceptable, and enamelware for baking Easter cakes is used, probably, in nine cases out of ten. So that the dough does not stick to the walls and does not burn, the form must be lined with oiled paper. To do this, cut out a round piece of paper on the bottom and rectangular on the walls. Inside, the edges of the pieces of paper should overlap, and on the outside, protrude slightly above the edges of the form. Then the cake will turn out high and even. Easter cakes of the same size are placed in the oven, separately large and separately small. This is due to the fact that it is undesirable to often look into the oven to check the readiness of the dough. When ready-made small cakes are taken out, large ones can be touched and damaged. But this does not apply to all types of tests. Early ripening yeast, for example, does not react to drafts and shakes in the same way as cooked using complex technology with the addition of a large number eggs and sour cream. Moreover, Easter cakes will have to be moved around the oven, turned on different sides. If the dough on Easter cakes rises too much, you can stop it by covering it with a sheet of paper or foil. To do this, you need to wait until it rises a little higher than we would like. Under the weight of the leaf, the top falls off a little. When the top is on, there are two ways to correct the situation. Either by covering the top with a damp sheet of paper, or by placing a vessel of water in the oven. The burnt top can be cut off and masked under the icing, and the sides, protected by paper, can be scraped with a knife. It is worse if the cake is poorly baked on the sides. Having discovered this, you can quickly, before it has cooled down, return the cake to the oven without a form.

There is no exact date when you can bake Easter cakes for Easter 2019. This is because it can be done from Monday to Saturday of Holy Week, with the exception of Friday only. Depending on the date of Easter, the dates of this Holy Week will differ for each year. In 2019, it falls on the period from 15 to 20 April inclusive.

Active preparation for Easter not only in the spiritual, but in the ordinary domestic plan begins on Great Week. This happens against the backdrop of increased fasting and prayers, constant attendance at the temple. There are specific church traditions for each day of this week, but in order to be in time with the preparation, you should also start preparing the Easter table in advance.

In order for Easter cakes to retain freshness, splendor and aroma, it is recommended to start baking them at, and not earlier. Moreover, on the day of Maundy Thursday there are much more important rites and rituals for performance. In the morning you need to get up before sunrise and swim, then go to the service in the temple, confess and take communion. At home, carry out general cleaning, certain rituals for money. If after all this there is still strength left, then you can start baking Easter cakes for Easter.

Interesting! The people in Rus' began to bake Easter cakes on Maundy Thursday for the reason that this was a common method of divination. According to the first Easter cake, they determined: what will be the life of the family during the year. Everything is logical here, if the baking was good, then the year will be good. If the cake did not rise, did not brown, or something else was wrong with it, this is not a very good sign.

Consecration of Easter cakes

IN Great Saturday You can also bake Easter cakes, but on Good Friday it is better not to do such work. In the temple, of course, they will say that modern man must calculate the time based on his own schedule. If it so happens that on Thursday or next Saturday there is no way to find time for Easter cakes, then you can make them on Good Friday: with a prayer on your lips. However, it is best to postpone the cooking of Easter cakes on Great Saturday: get up early in the morning, put the dough and bake delicious Easter cakes. Then go to the temple to consecrate the food, which is put on the festive table first after fasting on Easter day and tasted.

But here it is important to follow one rule: Easter cakes for consecration should already be completely cooled down, the icing on them should take well and harden. In the same way, the eggs should already be completely ready for transportation.

To make cookies

On the pages of our culinary and festive site you can find delicious Easter cakes with or without yeast. But, of course, you cannot try all these recipes for one holiday: you will have to choose a few just for yourself. However, there are also general recommendations how to cook Easter cakes so that they turn out exactly.

For example, it is important to take the highest grade flour and sift it through a fine sieve two or three times beforehand. Everything to do in good mood with the joy of the approaching holiday in the soul. It is also important to take other ingredients for the dough exclusively at the same temperature. Raisins, other dried fruits, nuts, lemon or orange zest will add piquancy to the taste of the dough and the cake itself.

It is also important to choose the right form for baking Easter cakes. It is recommended to buy special disposable paper molds in the store: they are themed, fit perfectly and are cheap. Just remember that yeast dough in such molds is superimposed only on one third of the volume. Then let the dough stand, it will rise twice, then send it to the oven, where the pastry will rise again and will already take up the entire mold, even creeping out a little.

The event of the Resurrection of Christ is the largest and brightest Christian holiday. This holiday is also called Easter, is the oldest and important holiday liturgical year. In 2016, Easter falls on May 1st.

Where did the tradition of baking Easter cakes come from?

Kulich is one of ancient symbols Resurrection of Christ. Kulich is similar to artos - a special round high bread with the image of a cross and a crown of thorns. Artos in the temple means a sacrifice for the people - Christ himself.

The Easter treat reflects the faith of Christians in the invisible presence of the risen Lord at their festive meal.

Icon "The Last Supper"

Tradition says that the apostles, at a common prayer, remembered the Last Supper and partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. And at the meal, they left the first place at the table to the invisibly present Lord and put bread in His place.

When to bake cookies

Easter cakes traditionally begin to bake already on Maundy Thursday. But if you consecrate products on Easter you are not going to, you can cook everything even on Bright Sunday. However, baking Easter cakes requires knowledge of certain subtleties, regardless of when they are baked.

There was a sign that if the Easter cake was a success, it means that the house will be prosperous and well-being. IN Easter on the festive table, the top of the cake was cut horizontally, the cake was cut in circles or slices, and everyone received a piece. The rest of the cake was covered with a cut top.

Rich and lush Easter cake covered with white icing, with candied fruits, nuts, raisins is the main dish of the Easter meal.

Easter cake with raisins and protein glaze

Ingredients:

flour 300 g
warm milk 125 ml
yeast 5 g
egg + 1 yolk 1 pc.
butter 50 g
sugar 70 g
raisins 110 g
pinch of salt
vanilla to taste
protein for glaze 1 pc.
sugar for glaze 1-2 tbsp.

Dilute the yeast in warm milk and leave for 15 minutes. Mix 100 g of flour (it is better to sift all the flour) with a pinch of salt, add the yeast in the milk. stir, cover wet wipe and leave the dough for 30 minutes.

Grind the whole egg and yolk with sugar and vanilla. Add eggs with sugar and soft butter to the dough. Mix well, gradually adding the rest of the flour. Knead a soft dough (this is where additional flour may be needed), cover again with a napkin and leave to approach for 1 hour.

Pinch the risen dough, add raisins, knead lightly and let rise again (40-60 minutes). Prepare a form. Line it with baking paper and grease the paper with butter. Fill the form with dough (from a third to a half). Leave the dough in the form, covering with a napkin (30-40 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 100 degrees and place the mold with the dough in it for 10 minutes. During this time, the dough will increase greatly in volume. Then increase the temperature to 180 degrees and bake for 30 minutes until the splinter comes out of the dough dry. Let the cake cool and cover with glaze. For the glaze, beat the protein with sugar until thick and shiny.

Easter cake in a bread machine

Compound:
Measuring spoon and glass from a bread machine

instant dry yeast - 2.5 teaspoons
sugar - 6 tablespoons (75 gr.)
salt - 1 teaspoon (6 gr.)
butter - 150 gr.
eggs - 4 pieces (200 gr.)
milk - 100 gr.
flour - 500 gr.
vanilla sugar - 2 teaspoons
dried fruits - 1 cup (240 gr.)
powdered sugar for sprinkling

Cooking:

Pour yeast into a bucket of a bread machine, sift flour, sugar, salt, vanilla sugar, milk, butter room temperature, eggs. Rinse the raisins, pat dry and lightly sprinkle with flour. Place the raisins in the dried fruit dispenser.

Or put food in a bucket, according to the instructions for your bread machine.

Basic mode BAKE (baking) RAISIN (with raisins), size XL, light crust. The kulich is high, almost to the very top.

Almond cake with dried fruits

Ingredients

dried apricots 100 g
dried pears 100 g
dark raisins 100 g
almonds 200 g
dry fast-acting yeast 7 g
egg white 3 pcs.
lemon juice 7 ml
sugar 150 g
powdered sugar 100 g
prunes 100 g
dried cherry 100 g
light rum 50 ml
wheat flour 510 g
milk 150 ml
pinch of salt
egg yolk 3 pcs.
butter 160 g

We cut dried apricots, prunes and pears into pieces the size of raisins, put all dried fruits in a resealable container and pour rum. Leave it like this for a few hours or longer so that the rum is absorbed. Almonds pour boiling water, leave for 5 minutes, then clean and dry.

In a large bowl, sift half of all the flour, add yeast and milk, mix well.

Beat the egg whites in a dense foam with a couple of drops of lemon juice and salt. Beat the yolks with sugar until white.

Add melted butter, beaten yolks to a bowl with flour mixture and mix well, and then carefully, 2-3 times, mix in the proteins, keeping the air. We put the resulting dough for proofing for an hour in a warm place.

When the dough rises, add the remaining flour and dried fruits. We cut the almonds into pieces, add 150 g to the dough, and leave the rest for decoration.

In well-buttered and floured cylindrical molds, put the dough, filling the volume by half, and put in a warm place to rise. After 30-40 minutes, carefully put the cakes in a hot oven and bake for about an hour.

Mix for frosting lemon juice with powdered sugar, glaze the cooled cake and sprinkle with the remaining almonds. Due to the abundance of nuts and dried fruits, this cake is best served a week after preparation. It needs to be wrapped in foil and put away before Easter!

Easter cake with raisins, candied fruits and spices

Ingredients:

milk 250 ml
butter 200 g
vegetable oil 1 tbsp.
egg yolks 8 pcs.
egg whites 1 pc.
vanilla sugar 10 g
sugar 250 g
flour 600 g
salt 1/2 tsp
dry yeast 1 sachet
rum-infused raisins 2 tbsp.
cinnamon, cardamom to taste
For glaze:
squirrels 2 pcs.
sugar 150 g
candied fruits for decoration

Mix half of the flour with yeast and sift 2-3 times. Add warm milk and knead the dough for 20 minutes. Cover and put in a warm place for 1 hour. During this time, the dough should increase in volume by 2-3 times.

Beat egg yolks and whites together with sugar and vanilla until white. Butter take it out of the fridge beforehand. Rinse raisins in warm water, dry and lightly sprinkle with flour.

Add beaten eggs, raisins, butter and flour to the dough, add salt and knead the dough until it starts to lag behind the hands and the walls of the dish. While kneading, gradually add the remaining flour.

Ready dough cover and put in a warm place to approach. It should increase in volume by 2.5-3 times. Lightly knead the risen dough, cover again and leave to rise again.

Then fill the baking dish with dough 1/3, let it rise a little more. At this time, preheat the oven to 180. Bake Easter cakes for 40-45 minutes.

For the glaze, beat the whites together with powdered sugar, adding a few drops of lemon juice. Cover the finished cakes with icing, decorate them with candied fruit.

Quick Easter cake without yeast

Ingredients:

Cream cheese (Philadelphia type, Almente) - 400 g
Cream (35% 100 + 50) - 150 ml
White chocolate - 75 g
Cognac (optional) - 1 tbsp. l.
Lemon zest - 1 tsp
Vanilla - 1 g
Flour - 300 g
Baking powder - 1 tbsp. l.
Chicken egg (large, room temperature) - 4 pcs
Powdered sugar (250 + 200) - 450 g
Raisins - 100 g
Lemon juice - 3 tbsp. l.
Almonds (crumbs) - 40 g

Whip cream cheese with 100 ml of cream.

Heat 50 ml of cream and melt the chocolate cut into pieces in them.

Add melted chocolate, vanilla and cognac to cheese mixture and beat well.

Beat the eggs until doubled in volume and, without ceasing to beat, add powdered sugar 250g. Beat for at least 10 minutes.

Combine the cheese and egg masses, beat at the 1st speed of the mixer.

Add zest and stir.

In 2-3 steps, add the flour sifted with baking powder, mix with a spatula, and then beat quickly with a mixer at 1st speed. The finished dough flows off the spatula in ribbons.

Roll raisins in 1 tbsp. l. flour and combine with the dough.

Place the dough in a mold well greased with MARGARINE!!! and sprinkled with flour, filling 2/3.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180″C for 35-40 minutes. Focus on your oven!

Lemon Glaze:

Gradually add lemon juice to powdered sugar (200 g), carefully grinding the mixture with a spoon. Pour the icing over the cake, placing it on the wire rack and laying baking paper down.

Sprinkle with toasted almonds.

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Tatyana Mikhailovna Sonets. "April" (Easter still life). 2011

When to cook Easter cakes, make Easter, paint eggs?
By Orthodox traditions it must be done in Thursday before Easter. It is on Thursday that it is customary to cook Easter dishes, prepare your home and your body for Easter, in order to devote yourself to spiritual preparation for the bright holiday on Friday and Saturday.
This Thursday is called Great like all days Holy Week. It is also called Maundy Thursday.
It is with this day, as with no other pre-Easter day, that many folk traditions and rites.

It is believed that in Maundy Thursday Everything in the house should be clean and tidy. On this day, they wash themselves, do a general cleaning in the house, paint eggs for Easter, knead the dough for Easter cakes, make curd Easter, burn salt in the oven (do "Thursday" salt). They also count money at dawn.

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So where did all these traditions come from? Why does it have to be done on Thursday?
The fact is that our pagan and Christian roots are again intertwined here.
Before, in pagan Rus' the end of April was the “border” period, it began new agricultural year. Many customs were associated with this time, which boiled down to cleansing the dirt accumulated over the winter, preparing for the new season, new life.
In the Orthodox tradition Maundy Thursday- it's also like border, the transition from the asceticism of Great Lent to the Revival of spiritual life, beginning on Easter.

It turns out that there were a lot of customs associated with Maundy Thursday. Here are some of them:

On this day it was accepted bathe. Women went at dawn for water. It was considered a good omen if they did not meet anyone along the way, and if they met anyone, then it was impossible to utter a word so as not to spoil the “purity” of the water. At first, the woman poured this water on herself, then the husband and adult children poured it on, and washed warm water small ones. It was believed that those who performed this rite would not get sick all year. They also washed themselves with silver water to attract prosperity next year.
It was believed that if you wash the floors on Maundy Thursday, the whole year in the hut will be clean. On this day, they decorated the hut, spread clean festive rugs, hung beautiful towels and curtains, painted eggs and prepared Easter dishes.
Many rituals of Maundy Thursday were associated with "first day magic" and aim for good luck personal life, good harvests, welfare of livestock, protection of the house and the peasant yard from evil forces next year.
With the same pagan traditions is connected and already modern tradition To count money at sunrise. It is obvious that modern man simply uses new symbols of wealth, obeying the old rites.
This day was endowed with magical properties and fire- Another pagan symbol of purification and rebirth.
For example, even now it is customary to take home the candles with which they stood at the service in the evening at Maundy Thursday. These candles are called "Thursday". It is considered a good omen to convey "Thursday Fire" to the house and light a home lamp from it and use this candle all year on especially important occasions. Another smoke from the "Thursday" candles drew a cross over the door of the house - for a talisman.
In some places it was customary to collect juniper and fumigate they have a house, a garden, domestic animals, household utensils, protecting it from possible misfortunes. Sometimes they drove cattle through the smoking juniper and stepped over themselves, it was considered very effective means against disease and evil.
Even on Maundy Thursday they prepared "Thursday" salt. Ordinary coarse salt was burned in a kiln or oven, sometimes with kvass thick and in thursday night put on the table along with bread. This salt was served at Easter, part of the salt was stored until sowing, and also given to livestock before pasture for the first grazing. It was believed that such salt was cleansed of filth and possessed healing properties, it was kept for a year as a remedy for the evil eye for people and cattle.
Healing power was also attributed to leftover bread baked for Good Thursday. Believed in a special miraculous power splinters, which was taken out of the furnace on the evening of Great Wednesday for the “first fire” on Thursday. This burnt torch was called " quad stub“.
Also on Maundy Thursday they established "magic boundaries": at dawn, the owner of the house went around the house, uttering “spell words”, or a prayer, to protect the household and family from misfortune.
And there was also a belief that on the night of Maundy Thursday, sorcerers and witches "have the most important dates with evil spirits."

Many of the rites and beliefs of this day are connected with the fact that in early Christian Rus', on Holy Thursday, the people timed the pagan Navi day day of remembrance of the dead. It was believed that on this day a passage to the other world was opened. For example, in Belarus, Maundy Thursday has long been called the “Easter of the Dead”. Although in 1551 at the Council this combination was condemned, the people's memory preserved this fact in signs and customs.

As you can see, everything is mixed up in our reality. AND ancient pagan concepts of our ancestors, and Christian, orthodox traditions.

Which days of Holy Week are exactly right for the period when you can bake Easter cakes and paint eggs in 2018? Certainly, we are talking almost the entire period of the Great Week, with the exception of Good Friday. However, not knowing this fact, some housewives postpone these matters to the last moment: only on Holy Saturday, as a result of which they spin all day like a squirrel in a wheel and often simply do not have time for everything planned.

Therefore, we will analyze why on Monday and Tuesday, as well as Wednesday and Thursday, you can also deal with Easter cakes and eggs, as well as what rules must be taken into account within each day.

ABOUT exact dates egg coloring

As a rule, eggs are painted on Good Saturday, because the most mournful day has already ended during church year- Good Friday (on this day, according to church scriptures, Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross) and you can safely take up the festive table. But, if there are so many things going on Saturday, then you can also paint eggs from Monday to Maundy Thursday, inclusive.

Advice! Traditionally in Rus', the first painted egg was carefully kept in the house for a year, because it was believed strong amulet. It was believed that such an egg has strong healing properties; even livestock can be treated with it during the year.

Particular attention when coloring eggs, and this can be done, as already found out in this article, on Holy Saturday before Easter, as well as throughout Holy Week, with the exception of Good Friday, should be given to their color, as well as the pattern. traditional color for Easter eggs considered red and orange tint, which is a symbol of the rebirth of life and its new round.

When the cookies are baked

Usually housewives are interested in the question of when to bake Easter cakes and paint eggs in 2018. The tradition of baking Easter cakes, as well as dyeing eggs for this holiday, of course, also did not appear by chance. Mistresses can choose any day of the Great Week, traditionally, in order to put the dough, with the exception of Good Friday, when nothing can be done around the house at all. You can serve on the festive table for Easter.

As a rule, many people make Easter cakes on Maundy Thursday. But here you need to remember that you can’t deal with eggs and Easter cakes on Maundy Thursday until the moment when the house is over spring-cleaning: this counts bad sign and bad omen. Traditionally, among the Slavs, it was Thursday that was considered the best day to make Easter cakes. Modern housewives transfer the preparation of this dish to Good Saturday so that every Easter cake served to festive table was as fresh, soft and tasty as possible.

Why paint eggs and bake Easter cakes?

Many ask topical issue on the topic of when to bake Easter cakes and paint eggs in 2018, but they themselves do not fully understand why this tradition should be observed and why it appeared. Color the eggs different reasons, there is no single legend why this tradition arose. The most common is the story of Mary Magdalene. She brought eggs as a gift to the Roman emperor and told that Christ was Risen. The emperor laughed in her face and said that a man cannot rise from the dead, just as the eggs in this basket cannot turn red. Immediately, the eggs in the basket changed their color, and the emperor had no choice but to say: "Truly Risen."

Also, Easter cottage cheese is put on the table. By the way, you can also cook it on any day of Holy Week, with the exception of Friday. You should not put cottage cheese Easter on Saturday, because it may not have enough time to grab. It is better to take care of this dish at the beginning of the week. Curd Easter is the personification of the tomb of Jesus Christ. In shape, it should be a truncated pyramid with the initials H.V.

As for Easter cakes, this is sweet rich bread, which is a symbol of worship. If on Easter table this muffin is present, it is a sign that God, the Holy Spirit and the Savior lives in the house. Now known not only exact days when baking Easter cakes and painting eggs in 2018, but also traditions, why painted eggs, Easter cakes must be on the Easter table.