April 23, 2001

Kulich - Sweetbread Recipe


Kulich - Sweetbread Recipe

Russian Sweetbread
Makes three large or six small loaves; 24 servings

Ingredients

5 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 pkgs. dry yeast
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup butter
2 eggs at room temp.
1/2 cup citron
3/4 cup chopped, toasted almonds

Preparation

1. In large bowl, blend 1 1/2 cups flour, sugar, undissolved yeast and salt. Heat milk, water and butter until warm (120º to 130ºF). Gradually add mixture to remaining dry ingredients. Beat 2 minutes at medium speed of electric mixer. Add eggs and beat at high speed 2 minutes. Stir in almonds, citron and enough flour, as needed, to make a soft dough.
2. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 to 8 minutes. Place dough in large, greased bowl, turning dough to grease top. Cover; let rise in warm, place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
3. Punch dough down. Divide dough into 3 equal pieces. Shape each into ball; place in 3 greased 16-ounce coffee cans. Or, divide dough into 6 pieces, shape into balls and place in 6 greased 11-ounce soup cans. Cover; let rise until doubled in size, about 45 minutes (small cans) or 1 hour (large cans).
4. Preheat oven to 350ºF; bake small loaves for 30 minutes and 35 minutes for large loaves. Remove loaves from cans and place on their sides on wire racks to cool. Top with Almond Frosting.

Almond Frosting
2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Murder and the Muse

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955