Bread of luxury is what the name of the Italian Easter cake “Colombo” means in translation. Having once bought this incredibly delicious pastry in a store, I was eager to try making it at home. It turned out great, and all thanks to the proven recipe!
Italian Easter
INGREDIENTS
STEP-BY-STEP COOKING RECIPE
Sift the flour. To make the dough, mix the yeast with 50 g of flour, mix with 1 glass of warm water and leave for 30–40 minutes. Then add another 300 g of flour, 2 cups of warm water, mix and put in a warm place for 2 hours. Melt sugar with 0.5 cup of water in a small saucepan. Melt the butter separately. Beat the egg and yolks. Pour the remaining flour, salt, vanilla sugar into a deep bowl, pour in the beaten eggs, melted butter and sugar syrup. Stir, add the dough and stir again until smooth. Roll candied fruits in flour and add to the dough. Grease a cake pan with butter and sprinkle with flour. Carefully place the finished dough into the mold, cover with a towel and place in a warm place for 1 hour. The mold should be of such a size that the dough takes up no more than a third of its volume. Bake at 180°C for 35–40 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then remove and cool completely.
An Italian meal is a feeling of completeness of being, luxury in communication, and, of course, the pleasure of taste. Try making the original Italian Colombo Easter cake.
To prepare, take:
Orange, zest
Flour – 500 g
Salt - a pinch
Milk – 200 ml
Raisins (candied fruits, pineapples, dried cherries, etc.) – 150 g
5 raw eggs
Almond flakes – 50 g
Powdered sugar – 150 g
Softened butter – 300 g
Yeast, dry – 10 g
Preparing Easter cake in Italian:
1. To begin with, there are three tables. Dissolve dry yeast in spoons. Add flour (100 g) to them and knead. Now roll the dough into a ball, place it in a bowl, pour in 200 ml of warm water. And leave for one hour.
2. Sift the remaining flour, add salt, powdered sugar, orange zest, 4 raw eggs and (softened) butter. Add the prepared starter. Pour in the milk. Mix everything well and thoroughly. Cover this dough and place it in a warm place (about one hour).
3. During this time your dough has risen. Add candied fruits and raisins to it. Knead everything thoroughly. Cover the dough with a towel and place it in a warm place again, again for one hour.
4. Grease the prepared pan with oil. Place the dough in it and leave it for 15 minutes.
5. After time has passed, brush the cake with an egg (which you have previously beaten) and add almonds.
6. You can bake an Italian Easter cake. Put it in the oven. Temperature 180 degrees. Prepares in approximately one hour.
Columbo is ready. Surprise your friends and loved ones with Italian Easter cake.
Today you have an exclusive master class from an Italian chef. He will reveal a recipe for making a very tasty and original Easter cake that will not go stale for a whole week. The traditional Italian Easter cake Colomba is a family recipe that he inherited from his grandmother; the festive dough in it is prepared in five batches.
"Colomba" is a sweet symbol of Easter. Every Italian family must bake this cake. According to legend, in 612 the monk Saint Columbanus arrived in Milan, where the queen decided to honor him with a dinner, serving game dishes. But these were the last days of fasting, and the monk, so as not to offend the queen, blessed the food, after which it turned into sweets in the form of doves. The Italians liked the rich and aromatic paska so much that the recipe for baking it was passed down from generation to generation, and each family added something of its own to it. Pilgrims and tourists who come to Italy note that this is the most delicious pasca pie they have ever tasted in their lives.
“A month before the holiday, Italian supermarkets and bakeries are filled with a wide variety of Easter doves,” says Vincenzo Barba. – They sell not only ready-made Easter cakes (which, by the way, are not cheap), but also forms for baking them. They usually have a diameter of 22 cm.”
Italian Easter cake Colomba
To prepare the Italian Easter cake "Colomba" you will need:
For the test: butter, yeast, molasses, milk, lemon or orange zest, candied fruits, vanilla, yolks, salt, sugar, flour, malt. For glaze: sugar, almonds, vanillin, egg whites, almond flour.
The dough is made in five batches.
First batch. Pour 50 ml of warm milk into a bowl, add malt and 100 g of flour. Knead this dough and roll it into a ball, then put it in a warm place for 30 minutes.
Second batch. Add 80 ml of milk and 100 g of flour to the present dough, mix it all and again leave in a warm place for another 30 minutes. “The special thing about this cake is that it takes 24 hours to bake,” says Vincenzo Barba. – But at the same time it requires practically no work! Most of the time the dough just rests. And it’s very convenient to start cooking it in the evening and then leave it overnight. You mind your own business, and the most delicious cake in the world prepares itself.”
Third batch. We add 150 g of flour, sugar and 50 ml of milk to the resulting dough. Knead this for about 15 minutes, periodically adding 80 g of butter little by little. Then roll the dough into a ball, place it in a large bowl and cover with cling film. Leave for 2 hours.
Fourth batch. Next, add 5 g of salt, 100 g of sugar, vanilla, 10 g of zest, molasses and yolks to the present dough - we beat all this. Add 200 g of flour, 170 g of butter and candied fruits - mix and place in a bowl, previously greased with oil using a brush. After 4 kneads, leave the dough for 12 hours, that is, overnight.
Fifth batch. First we will make a form in which to place the dough. Take a disposable aluminum foil baking dish and place 4 cups on it: two larger ones (the diameter of a dove's wings) and two smaller ones. Bend the shape. “You can bake this cake in a traditional form,” says Vincenzo Barba. “But everything will turn out more beautiful this way.” Place the dough in the Colomba mold and let it sit for 3 hours (one last time to allow the dough to rise).
Then put the dough in the molds into the oven. Bake for the first 10 minutes at 200 degrees, then 30-40 minutes at 180 degrees. To avoid wasting time, you can prepare the glaze during this time.
Glaze. Beat the whites, add sugar and vanillin. For this we also need almond flour. Pour glaze over the finished cake and decorate the top with whole almonds.
“As a child, my grandmother made such cakes with a huge number of different fillings - with lemon, orange, candied fruits, chocolate... All the children looked forward to these delicacies!” – recalls Vincenzo Barba.
Based on materials from the site dobre.stb.ua
The Italian Easter cake Colombo is traditionally baked in the shape of a dove with outstretched wings or a cross. But it is also good in its usual – round – shape. This cake turns out fragrant and very tasty!
INGREDIENTS
- 280g flour plus a little more for rolling
- 120 ml whole milk
- 15 g fresh yeast
- 80 g sugar
- 3 eggs
- 80 g butter plus a little more for greasing
- 70 g small raisins
- 1 large orange and 1 lemon each
- 1 vanilla pod
- pinch of sea salt
- powdered sugar for serving
- 70 g almonds for decoration
- 50 g sugar for glaze
- 20 g cornstarch for glaze
STEP-BY-STEP COOKING RECIPE
Step 1
Add 1 tbsp to warm (38–40 °C) and slightly salted milk. l. sugar and crumble the yeast, stir. Leave for 10 minutes. Melt the butter and cool.
Step 2
If the raisins are very dry, pour hot water over them for 10–15 minutes, place in a sieve and dry. Zest the orange and lemon and squeeze out the juice.
Step 3
Cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds with a sharp knife (you won't need the bean). Beat 2 eggs and 1 yolk with a fork until smooth. Add citrus juice and zest, remaining sugar, vanilla seeds and salt.
Step 4
Sift the flour into a heap, make a well, pour in the yeast mixture. Add the egg mixture, melted and cooled butter, and raisins. Knead until smooth, 10 minutes. Leave to rise in a warm place for 2 hours, during which time knead twice.
Step 5
Grease a springform baking pan with butter. Place the dough into the mold. Let sit in a warm place for 30 minutes. Bake in the oven at 160°C, 50–60 minutes. If the top starts to brown too much, cover it with foil. Remove the cake from the mold and cool.
Step 6
For the glaze, grind half the almonds with sugar and starch in a blender. Beat the remaining egg white from the dough and mix with the almond mixture. Spread the frosting over the cake and immediately sprinkle with the remaining coarsely chopped almonds. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.
