Put rice, some salt and two of the bayleaves in a pan with the same amount of cold water by volume. Bring to the boil and simmer until water is boiled out (~2-3 minutes; this will leave the rice undercooked). Also quickly sear the beef, to likewise part cook it. Meanwhile, chop the onion and herbs and grate the carrot. Also, in a pan big enough to fit the cabbage head, bring water to the boil (enough to cover the head when it's in the pan, but not so much it spills over). Remove the stem from the cabbage (cut a cone around it). Put the cabbage in the boiling water, leave there for ~3 minutes, remove from the water, allow to cool enough to touch. Stir the onion, herbs, tomatoes, carrot, minced beef and rice together, along with salt (~3/4 of a tablespoon) and freshly ground black pepper; also about a quarter of the creme fraiche. Find the outermost cabbage leaf, peel it off, put 2-3tbsp of mix on it near the stem, fold over from the stem end, fold in the sides and fold over again. Put the whole thing in a baking tray (with sides tall enough that it's all the way inside); if you lay it edges down, its own weight will hold it closed and it'll hold its shape once cooked. Repeat until all the mix is gone. Put the remaining bayleaves on top. Chop the butter into a few pieces and put those on top as well. Spread the rest of the creme fraiche over the lot. Add a bit of water, enough to go about 2/3rds of the way up the golubtsi, certainly not enough to cover them. Put in oven at ~170C for ~2 hours.
You'll have around a third of the cabbage left (the inner leaves are too small to use; if you have any meat/rice mix left just fill it round the sides of the tray, it'll go crispy and delicious). You can use it to make /Schi (reduce amounts from that page appropriately) or just fry it with butter and grated carrot.
(note the more common recipe uses waay more tomatoes, which is why most photos online are [kinda red]. I don't much like them in this myself and have taken to leaving them out entirely. If you have an eastern european shop near you you may find they sell these tinned, don't judge by those, freshly made ones are much nicer.)
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Recipe/Golubtsi