Colomba. The Italian Easter cake
This colomba recipe is made with active sourdough. The preparation has few individual steps, but long resting times
Equipment
- 1 paper baking tin for 1 kg of Colomba dough
- 1 food processor I highly recommend this, as the dough needs to be kneaded often and for a long time.
- 1 (kitchen) thermometer (optional)
Ingredients
sugar glaze
- 40 g almonds ground
- 50 g sugar powdered
- 30 g cornstarch
- 2 whites of M eggs
- 1 pinch salt
Flavor mixture
- 1 teaspoon honey
- lemon untreated, grated zest
- orange untreated, grated zest
- 2 vanilla pods seeds only
- 35 g butter soft
Pre-dough
- 220 g flour wheat, type 550
- 70 g sourdough starter active
- 100 ml water
- 70 g sugar
- 70 g butter soft
- 2 yolks M eggs
- 2 g salt
Dough
- pre-dough
- 55 g wheat wheat, type 550
- 5 g malt
- 55 g sugar
- 3 yolks 2 x egg size M, 1 x size L
- 10 g salt
- flavor mixture
- 100 g butter soft
- 200 g raisins and/or candied fruit
Also
- almonds whole
- sugar caster
Instructions
Before you start:
- The starter dough needs to rise for 10-12 hours. I then leave it to rest overnight in the fridge, as well as the icing and flavor mixture.
Sugar icing and flavor mixture
- The evening before baking, mix all the ingredients for the icing and stir well. Put all the ingredients for the flavoring mixture into a bowl and mix well. Cover the icing and flavoring mixture and store in the fridge overnight.
Pre-dough
- Knead the flour, the sourdough starter and the water well in a food processor for about 10 minutes. Then add the sugar, the butter and the egg yolks to the dough one at a time. Mix in each ingredient until well combined. Only then add the next ingredient. Finally, knead in the salt. The dough should be nice and smooth, but do not knead for longer than 25 minutes. Now leave the dough to rise at a temperature of 24-27 °C until it has tripled in volume. This takes about 10-12 hours. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and store at +4 °C (refrigerator).
Dough
- The next day, take the starter dough out of the fridge and leave to rise for ½ hour at room temperature.
- Put the flour and malt in the mixing bowl with the starter dough and knead the dough for about 15 minutes. Slowly add the sugar. When it is incorporated, add half of the yolks, the salt and the flavoring mixture. Only now add the other half of the yolks and the softened butter. Knead all the ingredients well. Mix in each ingredient until it is well incorporated into the dough. Only then add the next ingredient. This should take no longer than 45 minutes in total. Finally, briefly mix in the raisins and/or candied fruit. Grease your hands with a little butter, remove the dough from the mixing bowl and roll it into a ball, pressing the underside together well. Leave the dough to rise uncovered for 40 minutes.
- Cut the dough in half, roll each half like a baguette and place crosswise (body and wings of the dove) in the colomba baking tin. Leave to rise for 6 hours at room temperature. The sweet pastry should rise nicely.
Baking
- Preheat the oven to 160 °C.
- Spread a thin layer of icing on the surface of the colomba. Sprinkle the icing with almonds and caster sugar. Bake at 160 °C for 50-55 minutes. It is best to use a thermometer to check whether the pastry is cooked through. The core temperature should reach 92-94 °C.
- Remove the colomba from the oven and turn it upside down. Prick the base twice immediately with a knitting needle or wooden skewer. Leave to cool like this.
Notes
Variant with chocolate: replace the fruit with chocolate chips.
Don't forget to activate or feed your sourdough starter in good time until it doubles its volume in 4 hours. On the day of preparation, feed the sourdough starter 3 times at 3-hour intervals with 1 part flour, 1 part sourdough and ½ part water. The Colomba requires 60-70 g of sourdough starter.
Nutrition
Calories: 247 kcalCarbohydrates: 33.7 gProtein: 4 gFat: 11.6 gSaturated Fat: 5.9 gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1.1 gMonounsaturated Fat: 3.7 gTrans Fat: 0.3 gCholesterol: 70.7 mgSodium: 312.6 mgPotassium: 174.8 mgFiber: 2.1 gSugar: 12.7 gVitamin A: 337.6 IUVitamin C: 6.9 mgCalcium: 27.3 mgIron: 1.2 mg
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