Kulich / sweet Russian Easter bread
Fluffy, soft and simply delicious tastes this sweet Easter bread. Russian Easter is hardly imaginable without the kulich. According to this recipe you can make the classic kulich at home. It is not difficult to prepare the Russian Easter bread. You just need to allow enough time for the yeast dough to rise.
Servings 1 Easter bread
Equipment
- approx. Ø 14 cm large kulich baking pan
Ingredients
for the dough
- 100 ml milk (lukewarm)
- 2 eggs (room temperature)
- 65 g butter (room temperature)
- 100 g sugar
- 50 g raisins
- 8 g vanilla sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- 4 g dry yeast
- approx. 260 g flour
- flour for the work surface
- butter for greasing and flour for dusting the baking pan
for the icing
- 50 g powdered sugar
- egg white of 1 organic egg
- 1 tsp lemon juice
for decorating
- colored sugar sprinkles
Instructions
Preparation of the dough
- Mix 120 g of flour and dry yeast. Dissolve 1 tsp sugar (from the total amount given) in lukewarm milk. Add the milk with sugar to the flour with dry yeast and mix to a very soft pre-dough. Cover the pre-dough in the mixing bowl and let it rise in a warm place for about 20 minutes.
- Separate egg yolks from egg whites. Beat egg yolks, sugar and vanilla sugar until fluffy and white.
- Beat egg whites and salt until stiff and fold into egg yolk-sugar mixture.
- Add the egg-sugar mixture and softened butter to the pre-dough, then gradually add the remaining flour and knead into a soft, very sticky dough. Then knead the dough for about 15 - 20 minutes, cover it with a towel and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
- Now knead the dough briefly and let it rise for another approx. 35 minutes.
- Pour hot water over raisins, let them steep for 5 minutes and then dry them thoroughly.
- Add raisins to the dough and knead it so that the raisins are evenly distributed in the dough.
- Grease the baking pan with butter and dust it with flour, tapping off the excess flour. Dust the work surface with flour, roll your hands in flour, shape the dough into a ball and place it in the baking pan (the pan should not be more than half full with the dough). Cover the mold with a towel and let the dough rise in a warm place for about 1 hour.
- Bake the kulich in a preheated oven at 180 °C on the second rack from the bottom for about 25 minutes (For this, note the detailed tips and tricks for baking Russian Easter bread here at the top of the post). After baking, carefully remove the Easter bread from the baking pan, place it on its side on a pillow and let it cool, carefully turning it over and over during the process.
Preparation of the icing
- Whip egg whites, powdered sugar and lemon juice.
Decorating the Easter bread
- Spread the icing on the top of the cake, sprinkle it with colored sugar sprinkles and let the icing dry briefly.
Notes
- Instead of raisins, use other dried fruits, candied orange peel or candied lemon peel.
- Instead of dry yeast use fresh yeast. For the recipe you will need 11 g of it. They have to be dissolved in lukewarm milk together with 1 tsp sugar.
- Milk must be lukewarm.
- Add flour to the dough in portions. The amount of flour indicated may vary. The dough must be soft and very sticky.
- Be sure to knead the dough for about 15 - 20 minutes.
- Grease the kulich baking pan thoroughly before baking and dust with flour.
- It is best to fill the baking pan 1/3 and no more than half full with the yeast dough.
- Depending on the size of the baking pan, the baking time may vary considerably.
- To prevent the surface of the Easter bread from burning, cover it with baking paper after about 20 minutes of baking time.
- To check whether the kulich is baked, do a chopstick test.
- The cooling time of the Easter bread is not included in the preparation time.
- Note the detailed tips and tricks for baking Russian kulich at the top of the post.