#kalach

They're both completely content with jumping in the river - but the first hot bath Karlach has had in years and Tav has had in months is nice. (Tav isn't selfish, but did slip in to the bath before anyone else could finish arguing about who got to use it first.)

Both of them fall asleep a little easily sometimes though:

Ingredients

1 teaspoon of sugar 1 cup of lukewarm water 2 packages of dry yeast 3 tablespoons of sugar 3 tablespoons of butter, melted 2 cups of milk (at about 40 Celcius/110 Fahrenheit) 2 large eggs 1 tablespoon of salt 2 tablespoons of oil 8 cups of flour, sifted 1 large egg, beaten 1 tablespoon of water to glaze 2 tablespoons of poppy seeds (optional)

Directions

Sift half of the flour into a big bowl and thoroughly mix with warm milk and yeast.

Cover the bowl with a towel and put it in a warm place without draughts. Leave to rise for 30–60 minutes.

Add into the leavened dough the remaining flour, salt, sugar, 3 tablespoons of melted butter, an egg and one yolk.

Knead dough for at least 10 minutes.

Cover the bowl with a towel; put it in a warm place without draughts and leave to rise for 60-90 minutes.

After the dough has risen for the first time, press it down slightly: with a few light movements with an open palm press it down to get rid of surplus of gasses. There should be no less than two of such rises and pressings, with around an hour and a half in between them. 

Divide ready dough into 3 or 4 parts. Roll each part into an oval 1 cm thick.

On the one side of the oval cut out an arch 2 cm wide from the edge. 

Grease the derived “tongue” with remaining drawn butter and bend it onto the other side of a kalach. 

Put Kalachi on a baking sheet, grease the surface with remained yolk, leave it for proof for 20–30 minutes.

Bake in the oven, heated up to 200 °С for about 20 to 30 minutes.

Use a little wooden stick or a match to check its readiness: stick it into a kalach and remove – if it is dry the buns are ready.

Video to see how to shape the dough.

Source for recipe, which I altered a bit for this post (one action per bullet point, stuff like that). Recipes travel, so when you google it, Ukranian and Hungarian and likely other iterations also pop up, and they don't always look like padlocks. Sometimes they're braided.

Some additional intel! There is a museum where you can go bake them!

THE FIC! <3