Vikalinka

She laughs without fear of the future. And she cooks.

Russian Easter Bread Kulich

This brioche like sweet Easter bread, aka Kulich in Russian, is always the biggest hit at holiday brunches!
Sweet and buttery, studded with chocolate chips and glazed with white chocolate and sprinkles this delicious bread will be gone within minutes!

I feel an incredible pull of tradition every year when Easter comes around.  No matter how busy I am, the need to cook, bake and colour eggs overpowers everything else. I’ve written about Russian Easter traditions here and here, so if you’ve been following me for a while you know that Easter is the biggest holiday in the Orthodox tradition, which affects everyone in the whole country… Orthodox or not. Everyone celebrates Easter.

Kulich is a sweet bread that every Russian family eats for Easter… it’s an unbreakable tradition. Its sweet, rich and buttery  yellow-coloured flesh studded with all kinds of great things-golden raisins, candied citrus peel, almonds is what I want to stuff my face all the time but I wait till Easter like a good girl.  If I were to compare it to anything I would say it’s a cross between Italian Pannetone and French Brioche.

Sweet and buttery, studded with chocolate chips and glazed with white chocolate and sprinkles this delicious bread will be gone within minutes!

My grandma would start the dough the night before, let it rise overnight and wake up well before dawn to make all kinds of goodies- filled pastries, sweet and savoury, cinnamon buns and Kulich. Waking up to sweet aroma of freshly baked bread is one of my favourite childhood memories.

My grandma’s baking was the best, none of my friends’ grandmas came even close to her greatness but, unfortunately, she never wrote down any recipes and some of the most traditional Russian recipes, which she was the keeper of, got lost with her passing.

sliced kulich

Because of such high expectations, only heightened by my nostalgic memories, I never thought I would like another Kulich. However, I wanted to revive the tradition in my own family, so I went on a recipe hunt. I spent a while searching in hopes to find one that resembled my grandma’s. Truth is, I was only a child and didn’t remember how grandma made the bread. In the end, I had to turn to Natasha’s Kitchen. She’s got her mom and aunts with their wealth of knowledge and experience when it comes to Russian and Ukrainian food, and everything always looks incredible! I consult her blog any time I am unsure about any traditional recipe and she never disappoints.  I followed her recipe religiously except for the finishing touches. I used chocolate chips instead of traditional raisins and I topped it with white chocolate instead of sugar glaze.

Sweet and buttery, studded with chocolate chips and glazed with white chocolate and sprinkles this delicious bread will be gone within minutes!

I didn’t think any recipe could top my grandma’s and I almost feel guilty for saying this but Natasha’s recipe is without a doubt the most luxurious Kulich I have ever had! The first loaf was gone within hours…thank God that the recipe makes 3! Now I can relax knowing that once again my Easter table with be crowned with this gorgeous bread that’s been enjoyed by generations of others before us.

Happy Easter!

5 from 6 votes
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Russian Easter Bread Kulich
Make 3 8" round loaves.
Course: Breakfast
Cuisine: Russian
Servings: 3 loaves
Author: Julia Frey of Vikalinka
Ingredients
For the bread
  • 2 cups + 2 Tbsp warm whole milk
  • 6 eggs room temperature
  • 1 tbsp active dry yeast
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 250 gr/ 0.5 lbs butter melted (if using salted butter, omit the salt)
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ cup sour cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 9 cups all-purpose Canadian flour divided
  • 1 to 1½ cups chocolate chips or raisins
For the glaze
  • 200 gr/ 2 bars -white chocolate melted
  • sprinkles
Instructions
  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer or another large mixing bowl combine 2 cups + 2 tbsp warm milk, 6 eggs, 1 tbsp yeast, 2 cups sugar, warm melted butter, ½ tsp salt, ½ cup sour cream and 1 tsp vanilla. Add 4 cups flour to make a batter consistency of sour cream. Cover with a cling wrap and a towel and let it rise in a warm place for 2 hours.
  2. Add 5 more cups of flour; one cup at a time or until the dough no longer sticks to your hands to make a very soft and elastic dough. Stir in 1 to 1½ cups of chocolate chips or raisins, candied citrus peel or nuts. (Anything you like in your sweet bread). Cover and let dough rise another 2 hours in a warm place. The rising process will take longer if your house is not very warm.
  3. Divide dough evenly into three deep 8" baking pans, that have been well-oiled. Try not to handle the dough too much. Let dough rise uncovered in a warm place for additional 2 hours or until you see a significant rise.
  4. Bake at 350F/180C for 35-40 minutes or until golden.
  5. Remove from the pan and cook on a wire wrack.
  6. Once the loaves are at room temperature, melt while chocolate in a double boiler over low heat and cover the tops of bread with it.
  7. Use sprinkles to decorate.

Sweet and buttery, studded with chocolate chips and glazed with white chocolate and sprinkles this delicious bread will be gone within minutes!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. i read your recipes & it just brings back so many glorious memories of the day before easter & all the work involved for my mum & babushka, not for me tho, i was too young! tho i had to clean my room lol

    Reply

    • I am glad my writing brings back memories, that’s all I’ve got left too! 🙂 Making the recipes bring memories back to life though and that is why I love cooking.

      Reply

    • Unfortunately I don’t have one, Val. I know people have successfully used gluten free flour in place of the regular one in my cake recipes but this one is a yeasted bread, so I am not really sure how this would work.

      Reply

  3. I’m looking for a better kulich recipe for next Pascha and I found yours. This is probably a dumb question, but most kulich recipes I see online involve kneading the dough. Does this dough get kneaded? If so, when is it kneaded? It just seems like there is so much liquid in this recipe that, even after 9 cups of flour, this dough would be too sticky to knead. I would appreciate any advice you can give! Thanks.

    Reply

    • Hi Maria, this dough is pretty sticky and it produces amazing results. It’s has the texture and taste of brioche rather than bread. Also, it is kneaded in a stand mixer with a dough hook, which is designed for that but you can definitely knead it by hand if you are not using the machine. I hope this helps.

      Reply

    • My pan is about 4″ tall if that help, Cheryl. They are available at Marks and Spencer in the UK. In Russia women bake them in large coffee cans like the ones you can get at Tim Hortons in Canada 🙂 to achieve the traditional shape.

      Reply

  5. I’ve been eating it and then baking it for decades. Ours has always had egg yolks (not whole eggs), saffron, half cream-half milk, and ground star anise. I would venture a bet that it is better 🙂

    Reply

  6. You have the most beautiful. Most artistic. Most delicious photos I’ve seen. Wow! I just wish I could cook like you. Man, I guess I’m a little jellie over here

    Reply

  8. This is such a stunning cake!! Absolutely mouth-watering.
    I’m pinning and and also saving the recipe
    Thanks for sharing 🙂 I can’t wait to try it

    Reply

    • Gintare, are you serious?!! You must have something very similar in Lithuania though, don’t you? Funny enough, I appreciate it much more as an adult than when I was a child. 🙂

      Reply

  10. Such beautiful presentation Julia! I’ve never made kulich of my own and this year completely failed at baking anything but maybe next year. I turn to Natasha too for traditional dishes b/c we make them so rare and I have no clue on what I’m doing 🙂

    Reply

    • Same here, Katya. We don’t eat many traditional dishes. I never knew how to bake with yeast but I really wanted to learn so I experimented a lot. I still haven’t tackled piroshki. It might be a fall project once I finish my course and done with busy summer. 🙂

      Reply

  12. We too (Romania) have similar Easter customs. But I love how a simple bread turns into a delicay with the white chocolate frosting. It looks stunning and I can imagine how good it tastes.

    Reply

  15. What an absolutely stunning Easter bread! Every year I keep meaning to blog about Tsoureki which is the traditional Greek Easter bread and every year I leave it a tad too late… I love the look of your Kulich I have a terrible feeling I would eat most of that loaf myself! Have a happy Easter xxx

    Reply

    • Thank you, Lucy! I am so looking forward to reading about your Tsoureki next Easter! I know what you mean with some traditional recipes…they seem so daunting but I think it’s the feeling we get from our childhood when we saw our our mums and grans as super heroes and everything they made was grand! Happy Easter, my friend! xxx

      Reply

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