Ukrainian Sweet Braid

Honey often figures as a temptation in Nikolai Gogol’s Ukrainian tales. In one tale, “Viy,” some young seminarians visit a marketplace, where they are lured by a stunning array of home-baked goods. The peasant women cajole them to buy bread, one offering her special poppy-seed buns, another claiming that her loaf has been sweetened with real honey. The recipe below is for a typical Ukrainian sweet loaf, one even the strictest seminarian cannot resist.