Big tsar's cake

16 servings
6 hours

How to bake a big royal cake? Prepare all the necessary ingredients. First we will deal with the opara.

To do this, pour the cream into a bowl and lightly heat them in the microwave. Alternatively, you can heat the cream in a saucepan on the stove. The cream temperature should be about 38-40 C, no more, otherwise the yeast will simply die! Pour sugar into the cream and stir.

Mash the fresh pressed yeast with your hands and add to the bowl with sugar sand cream. Leave the bowl of yeast for 5 minutes, during which time the yeast is softened and much easier to dissolve.

After 5 minutes, stir the mixture very thoroughly with a whisk or spoon so that the yeast completely passes into solution.

Sift the flour through a sieve or with a special mug, this will saturate it with oxygen and make the baking air. Add the flour to the cream bowl.

Stir until thick dough is obtained. Cover the bowl with the resulting opara with a damp towel or cling film and place in a warm place for about 1-2 hours. During this time, the opara should increase several times in size.

While the opara comes up, we will deal with other ingredients.

First, separate the yolks from the proteins in 10 eggs. Fold them into a deep bowl, so when we beat, we will not stain the table. Pour the proteins from the two eggs into a bowl, they will be needed later for glazing, we will not need the rest, pour them into a jar, close with a tight lid and send everything to the refrigerator. Add 3 more whole eggs to the yolks. Wash the eggs in warm water with soda before use, as harmful bacteria may be on their surface.

Add the granulated sugar and vanilla sugar to the bowl. Vanilla sugar can be replaced with vanillin, but take it at the tip of the knife or it can give the ready-made pastry a bitterness.

Beat everything with a mixer until fluffy foam. The mass will approximately double. Set the bowl aside.

Take a cardamom. Fold the cardamom boxes into a mortar and crush them with a pestle, they must open.

Take out the black grains.

And rub them in powder. Optionally, you can grind the cardamom in a coffee grinder or grab a ready-made ground cardamom. If you do not like it, you may not use it at all.

After 1 hour, get our opara. During this time, she should rise well.

Add the beaten eggs with sugar and ground cardamom to the opare.

Spoon or whisk until smooth.

Add the sifted flour. By the way, since all manufacturers have different quality flour, you may need a little less or a little more, so in order not to beat the dough with excess flour, add it in small portions.

Knead the soft and sticky dough.

In the resulting dough, add soft butter in small portions. After each new portion of oil, mix the dough thoroughly. Remove the oil in advance (in 1. 5-2 hours) from the refrigerator so that it is soft. Cold oil cannot be combined with dough.

At the exit, we should have a very soft, tender and smooth dough. If desired, you can knead such dough using a bread maker or a mixer with dough attachments.

Brush a bowl or, as in my case, a large saucepan with a thin layer of vegetable oil and put a ball of dough in it. Cover the dough container with a film or towel and leave to warm for 1-2 hours or until the dough has increased 2-3-fold.

While the dough fits, combine the raisins (I have a mixture of light and dark) and cranberries together. Pour hot water over the dried fruit mixture and leave to swell slightly for 5-10 minutes. If you have fresh cranberries, then you do not need to pour boiling water over it, just rinse it in running water and dry it.

Drain the water, and roll the dried fruits on a sieve.

Transfer the cranberry raisins to paper towels/wipes to leave the leftover water.

Lightly grind the peeled almonds with a knife. And put aside for now.

After 1-2 hours, take out our dough.

Add dried fruits and nuts to it.

Mix the dough thoroughly so that the dried fruits and nuts are evenly distributed in it. Cover the dough container again with a towel or film and leave to rest for 15-20 minutes.

Divide the rested dough into parts. Roll each part of the dough into a neat ball.

Brush the baking tins with vegetable oil and sprinkle with flour or line with baking paper. By the way, if you use disposable paper molds, then it is better to also lubricate them with oil, since sometimes they do not use the highest quality paper and it will be difficult to separate the finished cake from such a wrapper. So, fill out the prepared forms with a test. By the way, the dough should fill out the form by 1/3, then your cakes will not run away beyond the edges of the form.

Leave the filled moulds warm for 40-50 minutes or until the dough has increased 1. 5-2 times. Before baking, brush the top of the cakes, if desired, with a shaken egg (this is not necessary).

Bake the cakes in a 170-180-preheated oven for about 20-50 minutes until beautifully blushed. Please note that the time is not accurate, as it will differ depending on the size of the cake and the features of your oven. On average, cakes weighing about 500 g will bake for about 40 minutes. If suddenly during baking the tops of the cakes will quickly brown, then cover them with a sheet of foil on top.

Remove the finished cakes from the mold and leave to cool on the grill.

Meanwhile, prepare the icing.

Transfer the previously left 2 egg whites into a deep container. In small portions, add sifted caster sugar to them.

And start rubbing proteins with powder with a spatula. Rub until the glaze is thick, smooth and crisp white. This can also be done using a mixer, spending less effort and time on it.

At the very end, add 1 tbsp. l of lemon juice and mix thoroughly. But you can do without it.

Cover the tops of the cooled cakes with ready-made glaze and sprinkle with pastry sprinkles. Leave the cakes for a few hours to let the icing dry.

That's all! Tsar's cake is ready!

Have a bright Easter! Christ is risen!