Easter kulich with raisins

First of all, we acquire everything necessary for the Easter dough. It is important that the ingredients are fresh and of excellent quality. Easter dough should be prepared with a sponge. Then the kulich will surely be fluffy. The milk we buy for the dough should be homemade. For the sponge, pour milk into a small saucepan. Heat the milk until it is warm. Crush the fresh pressed yeast. Pressed yeast is very easy to crumble into small pieces just by pressing on them with your fingers. If the yeast is fresh, when you press on it, it simply crumbles by itself.

Pour the crumbled yeast into the warm milk, and then thoroughly mix the milk with them until all the yeast completely dissolves in the milk. Add a couple of teaspoons of granulated sugar to the milk with the yeast and a little more than 1/2 cup of flour. Mix all the ingredients, and then cover the container with a towel. Place the dish with the sponge closer to the heat. This can be a radiator or a kitchen table near the stove. It will take about an hour for the sponge to be ready. The yeast will start to work and bubble in the warmth. When the sponge rises in the saucepan like a cap and then begins to collapse, you can start kneading the dough.

Place the saucepan with the sponge on the table. Remove the towel, pour the remaining sugar into the sponge. Also add the vanilla sugar here. Slightly melt the butter and margarine on the stove until soft, then add the cooled mixture to the dough.

Break the eggs, separating the yolks and whites into separate bowls. Beat the yolks with a mixer, pour them into the dough, and mix.

Beat the egg whites with a mixer, adding a pinch of salt. Pour the whipped whites into the dough after the yolks and mix.

Now it's time for the flour. We use wheat flour (of the highest grade). Sift the flour several times, and then add it in small portions.

Knead the dough by hand for a long time (at least half an hour) and thoroughly, adding unrefined sunflower oil as per the recipe. The dough turns out soft, fluffy, and not heavy with flour. When the dough easily comes off your hands and the walls of the bowl, it is considered kneaded. Cover the bowl with a thick terry towel and place it in a warm place. When the dough doubles in volume, punch it down.

At this stage, add the pre-washed and dried raisins to the dough. To ensure that the raisins distribute evenly in the dough, sprinkle them with flour before adding to the dough.

While mixing the dough, gradually add the raisins in small portions.

Again place the dough in a warm place. When it rises to the edges of the saucepan, gently punch it down. The dough is ready, and now you can fill the molds for the kulich.

We have tin molds. We line the sides and bottoms of our molds with oiled paper. We place the dough in the molds, so that they are filled with dough to 1/3 of the volume. We cover the molds with dough with napkins and put them in a warm place. In the warmth, the dough rises to the edges of the molds. We preheat the oven to +180 °C and place the molds with the risen Easter dough inside. Small Easter cakes bake in our oven for about 20-25 minutes. We watch the baking of the cakes through the oven window. Homemade Easter cakes with raisins are ready when they start to slightly pull away from the walls of the mold. If the cakes are not baked yet, but the top starts to brown intensely, we cover the top of the cake with foil. Then we take the ready cakes out of the oven, quickly and carefully remove them from the molds. We place the cakes on a rack to cool.

We carefully glaze the cooled Easter cakes with raisins. For the glaze, we beat the egg white with sugar using a mixer until it forms a strong foam.