We are at the fifth week of Great Lent but the monastery is already filled with aromatic fragrance of freshly baked kulich bread. The monastery will need to bake over a thousand of kuliches before Pascha.

We are sharing our own kulich recipe below. We had to decrease the recipe by 20, so it is unclear how many single kuliches will be baked. The estimate will depend on how many you will be able to make out of 2 kg/4.4 lbs of flour.

1.     In lukewarm water (150 g/5.3 oz), dissolve 50 g/1.8 oz active dry yeast, and add 1 flat tbsp of sugar. Mix by hand. Leave to activate the yeast.

2.     Add ½ liter/33.8 oz lukewarm milk and 400 g / 0.9 oz flour. Mix by hand. Cover and leave in a warm place for 10-15 minutes.

3.     Add 15 eggs, 700 g/1 ½ lbs sugar. Beat for 15 minutes.

4.     Add 250 g/ ½ lb softened butter (unsalted and at room temperature), 100 g /3.5 oz of refined cooking oil and zest from 1 lemon.  Mix well. While mixing, gradually add 1.5 to 1.7 kg (3 1/3 to 3 2/3 lbs) of flour. Add one flat tbsp. of salt.

5.     Once the dough is kneaded well, cover it and leave in a warm place to rise for approximately 1 hour.

6.     Once the dough rises, add 150 g of raisins (sorted and washed beforehand) and a few drops of vanilla essence.

7.     Immediately fill it in prepared forms. Here, at the monastery kitchen, we weigh the dough to fit our forms of 1.2 kg/850 g/250g kuliches. Carefully flatten the top of each kulich to make them look pretty after baking. Remove the raisins poking through the dough on top. Then poke it with a thin and long stick in four places.

8.     Next, the kulich will rise in a warm and a draft-free place for another hour.

9.     Bake at 180C/356F in a preheated oven for 30 to 50 minutes (depending on the size of your form).