Quick Yeast Pie with Cardamom

Although not as spectacular on the surface, this soft yeast dough pie with a crispy sugar and butter crust, decorated with almond petals, has an exquisite aftertaste of cardamom with a subtle hint of lemon zest and nut liqueur ... It uses rather unusual ingredients: cardamom is one of the most expensive spices in the world, and nut liqueur, which is rarely presented in the range of our stores. But you can exclude these "flavoring additives" if you wish: the pie is tasty even without them and is so easy to prepare that even a novice housewife can make it. I found the original recipe in the magazine "Burda" No. 1 in 1990, but, as always, I slightly changed it for myself.

Ingredients

• granulated sugar - 70 g
• butter - 50 g
• almonds - 25-30 g petals or coarsely chopped kernels, peeled or unpeeled (optional)
• ready-made nut liqueur - 10-15 ml (optional)
• yeast - 15 g fresh or 7-10 g (1 sachet) dry
• medium fat milk (3.2%) - 100 ml
• granulated sugar - 1 tsp. with a large slide (7-8 g) and 1 tbsp. l. with a large slide (25 g)
• salt - pinch
• eggs - 1 medium (weighing about 65 g)
• butter - 80 g
• wheat flour of the highest grade - 280 g
• ground cardamom - ½ tsp. no slide (optional)
• ¾-1 zest of medium lemon weighing about 160-170 g

Directions

1. Remove the butter from the refrigerator in advance (2-3 hours before preparing the dough) to make it very soft, creamy, or soften it in the microwave just before cooking.
2. Turn on the oven and heat it to 3.2 (180 ° С) (so that the dough can be put on it if there is no other warm place, for example, a heating battery, for it). Wash the lemon (orange) with hot soapy water and pour over boiling water to remove the layer of preservatives from its surface. Measure out the amount of wheat flour required for the dough into a separate container.
3. Start making the dough. Pour 100 ml of milk into a metal saucepan or aluminum bowl, put on a low heat and heat until warm (40-45 ° C) (during heating, the milk can be gently tasted with your finger to control the temperature). Then turn off the heat, add 1 tsp to the milk. with a large slide (7-8 g) granulated sugar and stir.
4. Crumble fresh yeast or dry yeast into milk with sugar, shake the bowl slightly to get the yeast wet, and leave for about 15 minutes in a warm place (on a heated stove or battery) to swell and begin to foam. After 5 minutes, you can slightly shake the mixture to speed up the process.
5. In a large bowl (about 3-3.5 liters), beat the egg with a pinch of salt, 1 tbsp. l. with a large slide (25 g) of sugar, cardamom and finely grated lemon (orange) zest.
6. Pour the yeast and milk that have come up to the beaten egg, stir.
7. Pour into the mixture, sifting, firstly 100 g from the previously measured wheat flour and stir in with a mixer, then add soft butter and mix everything thoroughly. Add another 50 g flour into the dough, sift, and mix again until smooth. At the end of kneading, add the rest of the flour in portions and knead the dough thoroughly with your hands so that it begins to lag behind them and the walls of the dishes (do not forget to remove the rest of the dough from the whisk before that). The finished dough should be soft. It is acceptable if it sticks to your hands a little.
8. Shape the dough into a ball, return it to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place for 50-60 minutes. As a result, the volume of the test should approximately double or triple.
9. Turn on the oven and heat it up to the figure 3.2, if you did not have it turned on in advance. Line a round tin with a diameter of 28 cm with non-stick baking parchment, crinkling the latter in shape.
10. When the dough comes up, you need to knead it with your hands in a bowl so that it settles, and again form a ball out of it. Remove the parchment from the mold and roll a ball of dough on it with a rolling pin into a circle of the size corresponding to the diameter of the bottom of the mold, periodically trimming it with your hands. Then put it in a mold and put it in a warm place, covering it with a paper towel on top so that the pie blank fits and grows in size (this can take 20-30 minutes).
11. At this time, measure in a small container the amount of sugar and cold butter required according to the recipe for sprinkling (the latter can be cut into small pieces with a knife). Rub them quickly with your hands into a homogeneous mass, then remove the container with it before use in the refrigerator or leave at room temperature. But the first option is preferable, because in this case, it will be more convenient to distribute the sugar-butter mass over the surface of the cake and it will turn out to be less greasy, since the butter will spread more slowly over its surface during the baking process and remain in the recesses (see paragraph 13 of the recipe).
12. If you are using whole almond kernels in your recipe, chop them into medium grains in a blender or chop them with a knife.
13. On the entire surface of the approached layer of dough, make a lot of indentations with your finger, being careful not to push it through and through. Spread a piece of the previously prepared butter and sugar mixture into the grooves, and spread its remnants evenly over the surface of the future cake. Then sprinkle it with almond petals (or coarsely chopped almonds) if you use them in your recipe.
14. Place the pie pan in the oven and bake until golden brown at 3.2 (180 ° C) for about 30-35 minutes. Make sure that the top of the cake does not burn too much. If necessary, after 15-20 minutes, turn the form over in the oven with the other side (if the cake is baked unevenly). The finished cake should rise evenly, and its top should be golden.
15. Remove the baked cake from the oven and immediately brush (sprinkle) with liquor using a silicone brush or a teaspoon (optional).
16. Allow the pie to cool slightly in the pan, then transfer to a serving plate along with the parchment. Let it cool completely at room temperature, cut into the required number of portioned pieces and serve (if necessary, cut off the burnt areas with a sharp knife with a serrated edge using sawing movements, if necessary (so as not to damage the dough pulp)). Enjoy your meal!