Kulich from Olga Syutkina

Description

I'm not sure that my grandmother was a very religious person, but she baked Easter cakes every year. However, in the era of atheism, they were baked in almost every family, and the cake "Maysky" came to bakeries by Easter . Remember this one? They baked it only in the spring and it looked like a real Easter cake. So the authorities contributed to the Easter tradition.
Plenty of cookie recipes. I am sure that you will bring something from your experience to mine. But try to keep the main thing - the state of the soul, when there is an overflow of joy and love. Therefore, I warn you: it will not be possible to do it quickly, somehow! You need to feel the process, the expectation of a miracle. And then everything will work out.

Cooking

Step 1

In a large bowl, mix 500 g flour with yeast.

Step 2

Prepare the eggs - in one container 5 eggs and 4 yolks, in another - 4 whites. Beat the eggs and yolks with a mixer, and leave the bowl with the proteins - they will be needed for the glaze.

Step 3

Pour 125 ml of milk into a saucepan, add pre-softened butter and bring to a boil. Pour in the remaining milk. It will be just the right temperature. Add 400 g of sugar and salt, stir until completely dissolved. Add beaten eggs, vanilla. You can put other spices - cardamom, nutmeg, lemon zest, saffron.

Step 4

Pour the resulting mixture into a bowl with flour and mix thoroughly - the consistency of the dough will be like liquid sour cream. This is a dough, and it should be suitable from 40 minutes to 1 hour.

Step 5

But now the moment is coming when only intuition will tell you how much flour should be added to the dough. Add flour in portions, knead first with a spoon, then with your hands. The dough should not be very dense, but not liquid. It is problematic to indicate the exact amount of flour, since its moisture content is different. Usually go almost 2 kg, or a little less.

Step 6

You need to knead for a very long time - 20-30 minutes. It is long kneading that is the main rule for making yeast dough. The product from it will turn out to be airy, beautiful, and will not harden for a long time.

Step 7

Put the dough in a warm place and let it rise 2 times (after an hour from the start of fermentation, make a punch). Then add the raisins, mix again and let rise for the 3rd time.

Step 8

In the meantime, prepare the molds - they should be warm. Lubricate the forms with vegetable oil, put a cut-out circle of baking paper on the bottom.

Step 9

Turn the risen dough out onto a work surface, knead lightly and place into molds so that it takes up 1/3 of the volume.

Step 10

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Let the cookies rise until they double in size.

Step 11

Small cakes will be baked for 30-35 minutes, large ones - 45-50 minutes. Check the readiness with a wooden stick: if the stick came out of the cake dry, it is ready.

Step 12

While cakes are in the oven, beat egg whites with sugar until stiff.

Step 13

When ready, take the cookies out of the oven. First, leave them in the form for 10 minutes and only then take them out on a towel.

Step 14

Lubricate the already almost cooled cakes with icing, otherwise it will dry out, turn into a hard crust and fall off. Decoration - to your taste!