Danish Easter Cake (Paaske Kage)

This is an old recipe I have from my grandma' Johansen from Denmark. It is very light and a delicious Easter cake, it can be used as a Christmas cake as well, but as most yeast bread it taste best when it is still luke warm.

• Ready In: 1 hr 45 mins
• Yields: 1-2 Cakes

Ingredients

• 1  envelope  yeast
• 1⁄2 cup  room temperature milk
• 2  tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1  large egg (or 2 small)
• 125  g margarine
• 250 -300  g flour

• Fill

• 100  g sugar
• 100  g butter, unsalted
• 1 -2  teaspoon cinnamon
• 1⁄8 cup raisins
• 1⁄8 cup  candied lemon and orange  dried fruit, chopped

• On top of the cake

•  cold coffee or  egg
• 2  tablespoons  coarse sugar
• 1⁄8 cup  blanched slivered almond

Directions

1. Stir the yeast into the luke warm milk.
2. Add sugar, egg, margarine in small bits.
3. Add 3/4 of the flour.
4. Work the dough with a wooden spoon, until it has combined.
5. Then work the rest of the flour into the dough with the hands, but not more than just combined.
6. Don't over work it.
7. Let the dough rise with a small amount of flour dusting on top, cover with a clean dish-towel about 30 minutes in a normal kitchen temperature.
8. Fill: Combine the butter, sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and candied fruit.
9. Roll the dough out on the table to oblong.
10. Use a light hand in the soft dough.
11. Spread the fill onto the dough, but not quite to the edges.
12. Fold over the ends so the fill doesn't run out.
13. Fold over the short part, so you now have 3 layers.
14. Set the cake to rise again with a thin dish-towel to cover for another 30 minutes.
15. Then brush carefully with cold coffee, or an whisked together egg, and sprinkle with sugar (not the fine kind) and 1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds.
16. Bake in the middle part of oven at 400 degrees F about 30 minutes.
17. Note: The cake will rise quite a bit and becomes surprisingly large.
18. You can actually easily make two cakes instead of one if you wish.
19. You can freeze the one, then thaw and reheat in the oven when needed.