Kulich is a traditional Russian Easter dish, a tall, cylindrical sweet cake made of very rich yeast dough containing lots of eggs and butter.

Kulich is flavoured with grated almonds and saffron which gives it a deep yellow colour and a wonderful aroma. Kulich can be enriched with nuts, almonds, raisins or candied fruit. It is traditionally eaten sliced into horizontal disks, cut to smaller pieces and spread with paskha.

During the great Easter fast of Greek Orthodox church it is forbidden to eat meat, eggs, butter or other dairy products. On Easter Sunday, when the fast has ended, it is again allowed to eat these "forbidden" ingredients and this is why many of the Russian Easter dishes contain lots of eggs, butter, cream, etc. In the old agrarian society, making kulich, paskha, etc was a way of using up all the eggs and dairy products that had piled up during the fast.

See my great-grandmother Yevfrosinia's recipe for kulich.