CHRISTMAS BISCUITS

Looking at the Statscounter, I realize that the time has come when hundreds of our readers search for Christmas biscuits and pastries again. So I thought to put more recipes up. If you haven't seen my posts from previous years, do have a look, there are many more delicious traditional Czech Christmas pastries and cookies recipes. Bon apetit! 

 Each of these recipes makes a fairly large quantity of biscuits – use half the ingredients if a smaller quantity is required. 

Please note all these biscuits will need to be stored for a period of time in cool temperatures (5-10C) to allow for the flavours and texture to develop fully 

GINGER FLOWERS 

INGREDIENTS 4 eggs, 6 yolks, 500g caster sugar, 550g flour, 2 tablespoons ground ginger

METHOD

In a mixer or a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs, the yolks and the sugar till fluffy. Fold in flour and ginger.

Put the mixture onto a lightly floured board and work gently into a smooth pastry. Roll out gently to about a 5mm thick – do not use much pressure or the resulting biscuits will go hard. Cut out flower (or other) shapes. Put these onto a greased baking tray, or a tray lined with baking paper. Leave to stand for several hours, or overnight.

Baking:

Put your tray into a fairly hot oven, to allow the biscuits to quickly rise – but then turn the temperature down so they don't turn brown – they should be golden colour.

Decorating:

When totally cooled, brush them over with egg white, and (optional) use the egg white to stick a small piece of candied ginger on the top.

Store in paper shoe box or similar for 3 weeks or longer in a cool place.

YUMMY HAZELNUT STARS

INGREDIENTS:

for the pastry:

400g flour, 170g icing sugar, 150g unsalted butter, 2 eggs, 4-5 tablespoons soured cream, 2 sachets vanilla sugar, pinch of salt (optional)

for the topping:
160g hazelnuts - ground, 80g marzipan, 4 level tablespoons icing sugar, 2 egg yolks, 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

METHOD

Mix all the pastry ingredients together to a smooth consistency, form a ball and leave it in the fridge for an hour or so.

Shred or grate the marzipan, and mix it with the yolks. Add sugar, juice and nuts.

Roll the pastry to 4-5 mm thickness, cut out star shapes, place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper, and brush with egg white. Spoon a small heap of the topping on each star. Optionally, place a whole hazelnut on top.

Bake at around 180C for 15 minutes, leave to cool and store in an airtight container in a cool place for two to three weeks.

FRUITY/NUTTY GINGERBREADS

INGREDIENTS

Pastry:

2 cups milk, 6 tablespoons honey, 4-5 tablespoons melted butter, 200g caster sugar, 2 eggs.

600g flour, 2 sachets raising powder, 100g ground hazelnuts, 100g ground almonds, 100g ground walnuts, 100g sweet candied fruit (raisins or sultanas, orange and lemon peel, or similar mix), 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground cloves., largish pinch of ground star-anise, 2 tablespoons cocoa, grated lemon rind to taste.

Icing: 300g icing sugar, 2 egg whites, 2 teaspoons lemon juice or rum. 

METHOD

In a pan, gently melt butter, stir in milk, honey and sugar. When cooled down, mix in the eggs.

Put all the dry ingredients onto a floured board, mix through and add the honey-milk mix. Work into a pastry, adding more flour if too sticky.

Form a ball, cover in cling wrap, and leave in the fridge for a minimum of three hours – or overnight.

Next, roll the pastry to about 5mm thick, and cut out shapes. Place your shapes onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Bake in low to medium oven – check that the honey isn't caramelising or the biscuits will turn bitter.

When cooled, before removing biscuits from the tray, pour a thin layer of sugar icing over the upper part of the biscuits.

Leave in a tissue-paper lined paper box, in a cool place for two to three weeks.

HEART-WARMING CHOCOLATE HEARTS

INGREDIENTS

Pastry:

300g flour, 150g icing sugar, 150g ground hazelnuts, 150g butter, 150g grated bitter chocolate, 2 eggs, 1tbsp orange peel, large pinch cinnamon.

Filling: cranberry or apricot jam – or Nutella

Topping: melted chocolate

 METHOD

Mix sugar and eggs, add the flour, nuts, and butter. Add lemon rind and cinnamon, turn onto a floured board and work into a smooth pastry while adding the chocolate flakes. Form a ball, wrap it in cling-film and leave in the fringe for an hour or so.

Roll the pastry out quite thin – 3mm, and cut out heart shapes. Place these onto a baking tray lined with baking paper, and bake in a moderate oven (170C approx) for about 10-15 minutes.

When cool, spread half of the hearts with the jam or nutella, put the other hearts on top like sandwich, and pour on melted chocolate.

These biscuits need to be stored in an airtight container in a cool place for a week.

ALMOND DELIGHTS

(THESE DO NOT REQUIRE BAKING)

INGREDIENTS

400g skinned ground almonds, 160g icing sugar, 80g melted white chocolate, 40g powdered milk, 2 egg-whites, 4-5 drops of almond essence, icing.

METHOD

Mix the sugar with the egg-whites, add almonds, powdered milk, melted chocolate and almond essence. Put the mixture between two greaseproof paper sheets or foil, and roll to about 3mm thick.

Gently peel off the top paper and cut shapes from the rolled-out pastry. Leave these to dry for at least three hours.

When dry, use your imagination in decorating – white icing with coloured balls, or just plain roasted almond flakes...

DATE SURPRISE

(THESE DO NOT REQUIRE BAKING)

INGREDIENTS

Pastry:

300g ground almonds, 200g ground walnuts, 160g icing sugar, 150g ground butter biscuits, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 6 tablespoons brandy or rum, optional pinch cinnamon.

Icing: melted dark chocolate, half a date for each biscuit

METHOD

In a mixing bowl mix all the pastry ingredients. Roll out between two sheets of greaseproof paper or foil., to about 3mm thick.

Gently peel off the top paper, cut out diamond shapes and leave them to dry out till the next day.

Decorate with a date covered with melted dark chocolate.

Leave in an airtight container for a week or so.

DATE PURSES

(THESE DO NOT REQUIRE BAKING)

INGREDIENTS

500g dates, 200g marzipan, 80g cooking chocolate, tablespoon butter.

METHOD

Cut each date lengthwise, remove stone and replace with a piece of marzipan. Dip into melted chocolate and leave on a wire-mash stand to harden. Store in fridge.

MOROCCAN GRILLAGE

INGREDIENTS

500g mixed peel, 500g mixed nuts, 500g sugar (or less if peel is very sweet), 600g flour, 1/2l whipping cream

Melted dark chocolate as icing.

METHOD

Chop the candied fruit and nuts and mix them with the sugar and the flour. Bring the cream to boil and remove from heat straight away. Pour the cream into the mix, and let it stand to cool.

moroccan grillage

Place small heaps of the mixture onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, and bake in a cool oven (max 150C) till orange-brown. As soon as the colour changes, remove from the oven and tray while still on the paper, and leave to cool. Then pour melted chocolate on the top.

yet more Christmas biscuits

The blog has many recipes for traditional Czech biscuits - for more, click on the label in the index on the left.

The biscuits below are truly scrumptious, and don't take too long to prepare:

Honey sunflower cookies

Pastry:
250g plain flour
150g butter
250g runny honey (genuine bees' honey)
50g icing sugar
pinch salt
2teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 egg
half a teaspoon freshly grated ginger
grated lemon rind

Filling:

100g butter
200gsunflower seeds
125g honey
2 desertspoons sugar
Knead together the ingredients by hand.

Roll out the pastry, cut out circles, put a spoonful of filling on each of the pastry circle.
Bake pastry and filling together.

Best to keep all the ingredients at room temperature - if cold, could curdle.

----
And just for fun, have a look at the next photo: would you believe all these biscuits are actually not edible, but croche'd ??? They are made by a local woman: just shows how people here still take their Christmas seriously, and how they are prepared to devote time and energy to prepare for it :-)

More Christmas biscuits

I am amazed at the number of visitors who are currently pouring onto our blog, from all over the world, and all in search of recipes for Czech Christmas biscuits! That query far outranks any other. By miles.
So I thought I'd add a few more, and send them into the aether. (For those who might have landed on this page from the search engine, there are quite a few other recipes in the blog, from last December - search label Christmas biscuits).

Wasps' nests

these biscuits (see arrow) need two essentials: round dry sponge biscuits, and small metal, plastic or wooden forms - both are easily obtained in the Czech republic, but you may need to improvise to create your own version:

NESTS

200g ground dried sponge biscuits, 100g ground nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, whatever), 150g crystal sugar, 70g butter, 1 egg. 2 table spoons cocoa, 2 table spoons rum

Mix all together into thick paste and leave to rest. Then dust the forms with sugar and fill them with the paste. Make hollows in the paste and fill them with cream filling. Seal the filled 'nest' with a sponge biscuit. When the biscuit is nicely set and won't pull off easily, turn the nests over.

FILLING

2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp sugar, vanilla sugar to taste, 1 egg yolk, rum

Chocolate nut baskets

PASTRY

300g flour, 150-200g butter, 100g icing sugar, 1 whole egg, 1 yolk, 1/2pack raising agent.

FILLING

150g digestive or other biscuits, ground, 200g nuts, 1 vanilla sugar, 2 tsps rum or brandy, 300ml milk

DECORATION

Chocolate icing, nuts

1/ Mix together all the pastry ingredients, work into pastry and leave in fridge till the next day. 2/ Mix together filling ingredients apart from milk. Then boil the milk and add the rest of the ingredients, boiling for a little while to form thick paste. 3/ Fill suitable small baking forms with the pastry and bake till golden. 4/ Fill cooled pastry baskets with the filling, and decorate.

folk traditions - Christmas in Bohemia

I'm no expert on the subject, but find it fascinating to compare traditions so here are some for those who might also be interested:

For the Czechs, like the most of the mid-Europeans, the most important part of the Christmas celebrations is Christmas eve. The tree doesn't get dressed until then, and both the main dinner and the present-giving take place that same evening. The presents under the tree are from Baby Jesus, not Santa (though the marketing people work hard to globalise the Czech Christmas, and in many cases are succeeding - for one thing, jolly Santa is easier to turn into blow-up or cuddly toys. However, a huge petition online 'keep our Baby Jesus' is a sure sign of some resistance :-) and after all, the Czechs still have their Saint Nicholas going strong)

Although carp is now the main item on the Christmas eve table, is was not always thus. For centuries carp was a fish kept by the aristocracy in own ponds so folk had crayfish, snails etc. But most had soup or gruel just like every day, except made a bit more special by adding as many ingredients as they were able to (Štědrovka= Plentiful soup, as the Christmas eve is in Czech the 'Eve of Plenty'). And then something sweet, mostly using dried fruit and honey. The idea for the Christmas dinner table was to use everything that the homestead gave: a bit of grain, a bit of fruit, root vegetables, legumes. And everything had some significance: red apple as symbol of life and health, peas or beans as symbol of plenty because they expand when cooking, nuts as symbols of wealth, grain as symbol of eternal cycle. And there would be a plate set for any member of family who died in the previous year. The head of the family would then go and give of the dinner to all their animals (peas to the hens, garlic to the rooster, herbs to cows, etc... and even leftover bones to the fruit trees) as thanks for having provided for the family.

As Christmas is a festival of nascent Light, it carries many customs associated with the mystery of Time - most with roots stretching far back into pagan times. These I shall tell you about in my next post.

Mad Czechs and Christmas Carps (and other weird things) in baths

Czechs are well known for their resourcefulness, borne of centuries of relative hardship. So they turn to anything that is useful in any circumstances. And a bath happens to be a very useful receptacle for anything that needs to be confined for a few days. Such as a carp that needs to be kept live till Christmas Eve, which is the day that it is traditionally on the menu.

So if you were to go out today or any day until Wednesday next week, you will find at every other corner jolly people in rubber aprons busily fishing huge carps out of large wooden tubs to the delight of queues of eager customers. They come with their string-bags as most of them take their purchase home live, and pop it into the bath. There it stays while the family goes without a wash - but then at least they get the entertainment of getting to know and befriending the unfortunate creature, even giving it a name. And so Fred, or Peter, is a beloved family member until the morning of its demise-day, when in thousands of Czech families the same tragicomedy ritual gets performed - dad chasing the slippery carp with a mallet all over the kitchen table, floor, chairs, wherever the poor thing happens to land in desperation to save its life.

But eventually it ends up on the festive table in the form of breaded fillets with potato salad, or, more elaborately, cooked in dark beer with prunes and raisins, sieved root vegetables and cream.

Nowadays the more trendy families are against this mass slaughter of carp, nevertheless they can't resist the 'carp-in-bath' ritual. So they go with their string bag and buy a carp, have it in the bath f0r a few days, and then stuff it into the string bag again and go with their children to a riverside, where they virtuously 'set it free'.
Whereupon the exhausted carp dies anyway.

A very elderly Jewish lady told me once how her childhood years were punctuated by having geese in the family bath, force-fed with potato dumpling pellets until they were so obese they hurt. But the resulting geese fat and liver were a delicacy prized beyond anything else.

And so, should you get a live chicken from some good soul in the countryside, why not bring it to your high-rise flat and keep it in the bath? Or a rabbit or two? After all, where there's a bath, there's a way :-)

Traditional Christmas pastry decorations; biscuits

I've pinched these two images off Google because, alas, I just don't have the patience to make any of these - but I thought they should go on the blog because these 'Vizovice' figures are very typical of Moravian, folksy, tree-decorations, and unusual in that they are made from dough.
You can read about the process (in English) and see many more photos of this decorative pastry
by clicking the link, but in short, all you need is ordinary flour, mixed with water, and a tiny bit of yeast (a pea-size bit for a kilo of flour). You work this well into a smooth dough, firm enough to hold shape when modelled.
Modelling the various figures and animals is done by hand, with the aid of scissors (e.g. for feathers or for hedgehog spines) or a small knife, and often a motif of platting is used too. Use linseeds for eyes and buttons, etc.

Leave your figures to rise slightly once on the baking tray, brush them over with egg-white, and bake slowly in a dry oven - about 3 hrs at 120C.

You can make people or animals - in the traditional lore each animal symbolises some wish, such as a frog stands for clear water, dove for peace, cockerell for fertility, squirrel for plenty in the larder. The pastries are then used for decorating the Christmas tree, sometimes people make figures for more or less elaborate Nativity scenes that are placed under the tree.
A lovely way to involve children when making home-made decorations, if a bit messy :-)

Christmas biscuits

By popular request I've added a few more recipes to the post below:
see 'Christmas biscuits - Recipes 3'
Bon apetit!

Christmas biscuits - Recipes 3

Mini Nut cakes
100g flour, 150g icing sugar, 250g unsalted butter, 150g very finely ground nuts (works equally well with walnuts or hazelnuts)
Redcurrant jam
Icing: melt 3 bars of cooking chocolate, and mix with 200g butter, 150g icing sugar and hot water as necessary.

1/Mix all ingredients and work into a pastry. Don't overwork it.
2/ leave in fridge for 1/2 hr
3/roll out to 4mm thickness and cut out small (approx 3-4cm diameter) round shapes.
4/bake on baking sheet till golden pink
5/When cooled, stick together a pair of biscuits each with redcurrant or cranberry jam
6/ pour on the icing and leave in a cool place to set.

WALLNUT BISCUITS
200g flour, 120g butter (unsalted, 100g icing sugar, 2 eggs,lemon peel, walnuts (whole)

1/Mix flour, sugar, I whole egg + 1 egg white and add the grated lemon skin.
2/ Leave for 30 minutes in a cool place.
3/ Roll out to 5mm thick, cut out shapes, add walnuts as decoration, then leave again for 15 mins.
Bake in hot oven.

CHOCOLATE ‘SALAMI’
(this is easy-to make, no fuss, but absolutely scrumptious)
100g cooking chocolate. 1 whole egg, 180g icing sugar, 180g nuts (half ground fine, half in rough bits), candied fruit

1/ Mix melted chocolate (not too hot) with egg, add the sugar and the rest of the ingredients.
2/ Make a salami shape, (using icing sugar on hands), and wrap it in aluminium foil, again first putting sugar on the foil so it doesn’t stick.
3/ Leave in fridge – do not bake!!
4/ Before serving, unwrap and cut into thin 'salami' slices

CHOCOLATE 'SALAMI' 2
As before, but adding crushed biscuits

COCONUT BALLS
40g butter, 120gg sugar, 30g cocoa, 50g ground coconut, 1 egg white
(you can add rum or brandy)
Mix all together, make small balls and leave in the fridge. DO NOT BAKE!

ALMOND biscuits
140g icing sugar, 140g almonds with skins – ground (can be made with any other unpeeled nuts), lemon rind from ½ lemon, ground vanilla – pinch, 3 egg whites

Mix all together, let it rest, then roll out to 1/4cm thick.
Leave on the board to dry out a bit.

Then make icing:
100g icing sugar, 1 egg white, ½ teaspoon lemon juice

Spread icing on the pastry, cut out shapes, then bake.

CHOCOLATE HALF-MOONS
120g butter, 120g icing sugar, 120g cooking chocolate, 3 eggs, 120g flour

icing: 300g icing sugar, 4 spoons rum, water

1/Beat butter, sugar and melted chocolate to a foamy consistency.
Add eggs (gradually)
Flour should be folded in last.
2/Pour onto baking tin finger deep.
3/Bake in moderate oven.

4/when baked and cool, pour icing over it.
5/When icing hardens, cut out half-moon shapes

Christmas biscuits Recipe 2

Spicy honey biscuits
1 cup milk, 3 desert spoons honey, 100g sugar, 100g melted butter, 1 egg
300g flour, 1 sachet baking powder, 150g mixed nuts - crushed, 100g mixed peel with raisins, 1 desert spoon cocoa powder, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder, 1/2 teaspoon crushed cloves, lemon zest, pinch star anise.
1/ Stir the honey, butter and sugar into the warm milk, mix well, then whisk in the egg.
2/ mix together all the dry ingredients and use the milk mixture to make a soft pastry - but if it is too soft to handle, add more flour.
3/ Work the pastry well, then wrap in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for half a day.
4/ roll the pastry out to about 1/2cm thickness and cut out shapes according to your fancy.
5/ Bake on baking sheet or non-stick tray, in a slow oven.
6/ Decorate the biscuits with a thin coating of runny icing - you can vary the icing flavours from lemon to rum or cocoa, or cinnamon, according to taste. Crown the biscuits with half a walnut or a single almond.

Another Czech obsession :-) biscuit baking

If you go to any supermarket in Czecho now, you will notice shoppers, especially women of all ages, shapes, class and persuasion, pushing trolleys piled high with flour, butter, cocoa, nuts, and lots of sugar. Why? Because it's time for baking. No matter how modern, stressed, low or high-flying, and no matter that every year they vow never to do it again, Czech women simply have to spend hours and days baking Christmas biscuits. It's a highly competitive sport: they compete how many different kinds of biscuits they'll make, and how delicious they are. Family recipes are kept secret, and exchanging them is a mark of the closest friendship and trust.
The biscuits have to be made this far in advance, because a/ they do take an inordinate amount of time, and b/ because they need to 'ripen' for at least a couple of weeks before they are eaten. They are stored in containers where they get a moist quality - quite different to the crispy kind of biscuit we like to crunch in Britain.
When it gets to Christmas and people visit their friends and relations, it is always with a container in hand - a ritual of tasting then ensues, comparing the hostess' biscuits with the visitor's, and counting the many varieties on offer, with much oo-ing and aaaah-ing. By the end of the holiday everyone gets to the point of not wanting to see another biscuit ever again - until next Christmas, when it all starts again.
The greatest faux-pas is to come visiting with a bought collection of biscuits. And so even single men often get down to baking - some of the best biscuits I've tasted come year after year from my 60 year old brickie :-)

I've decided to break the taboo and give you a few recipes - starting with my favourite, Vanilla sticks. Very easy to make, and simply delicious:

Vanilla sticks - Christmas recipe 1
200g ground almonds
200g butter (unsalted)
200g flour
200g icing sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
2-3 egg whites
lemon peel, finely grated

Mix it all together, do not work the pastry too hard or the result won't melt in the mouth quite so perfectly :-) let it rest for 15-30 minutes, then gently roll finger-thick long 'snakes', and cut them into 3-4 cm pieces. You can leave these pieces as sticks or shape them to 1/2 moon-shapes. You can even gently roll the pastry out to about 4mm thick and cut out biscuits shapes. But whatever shape you make them, they taste simply heavenly!
Sprinkle on a little bit of icing sugar for coating once baked, and while still hot.
Put the biscuits in an airtight box for at least a week before serving.

Food - Italy v Bohemia

One of the greastest compliments I ever received was that my 'melanzane Parmegiano' would make an Italian mother in law jealous - this in Italy from an Italian who wasn't trying to chat me up. So speaking as an Italophile who spends time in the Czech Republic I have to admit to having a bit of an attitude problem to Czech food. It's the absense of fresh veg in the restaurants which suprises me because the countryside bulges with fresh produce. Every back garden has fruit trees, soft fruit and a vegetable patch; the small side roads are lined with apple trees dropping their crop into the verges; the forests are full of people foraging for fresh, free food. However, order a salad in a restaurant and more often than not it will be the ubiquitous combination of iceberg lettuce, watery tomatoes and bland cucumber. (We asked a restaurant friend why he never had any of the wild funghi on his menu in autumn. He shrugged and said well, he wouldn't be able to get them all year - try that excuse in Italy! Perhaps it's the menu printing costs, perhaps there are laws regulating what can be offered in restaurants. Does anyone know?)

There are certain dishes which give a glimpse of the potential of this fertile land. There's a garlic soup on the menu of many of the local restaurants, best served in a bowl made from an excavated loaf of sourdough bread. It's a thin broth, probably chicken stock with grated raw garlic added and then immediately taken off the boil, put into the bowl with a generous amount of stringy mozzarella type cheese and a sprinkle of parsley. This is a desert island dish or a last meal for the condemmed, so satisfying you feel you'll never need to eat again - until you get hungry of course.

If you are lucky you'll get with your fire-grilled meat a freshly grated heap of horseradish root and this will satisfy a full weeks worth of fresh veg cravings, and thoroughly clear any sinus problems. There's nothing subtle about this combination, it's a challenge to vindaloo fanatics, and the only solution to the burning sensation from eating too much in one mouthful is to breath deeply through a slice of the sourdough bread (mad but it works and you won't care if anyone is watching). The horseradish cuts through any fatty richness in the meat and seems to aid its digestion. This type of dish usually comes with a small garnish of undressed salad and on this plate it works, no oily dressing to add to the meat fats, just clean, fresh and crisp salad to clear the palate. I've had this more than once at U Baby in Cesky Krumlov, a pile of fire grilled smoked pork ribs, a heap of fresh horseradish (dug up that day from the cemetary according to the waitress, was she smiling?) and bit of plain mixed salad all washed down with a glass of beer. It was one of the most nourishing and balanced meals I've ever had from a restaurant.

I suppose there are many variables at play here, one of them being my own expectations of what constitutes a good, balanced meal and another being the ability to override ones expectations. One person's meat and two veg is another persons zapecene vepřova žebirka

the taste of honey

The whole country- side was golden yellow with humble dandelions like huge, thick, sunny carpets in the last few weeks. While gardeners might hate is as a weed, when seen en mass like that it is a truly fabulous sight to behold. So to celebrate it, here is a recipe that elevates the dandelion to a nectar fit for the gods :-)
DANDELION SYRUP RECIPE
Pick your dandelions on a sunny day, around midday when they are at their most open. Put dandelion heads (as many as you feel like collecting) in a container with unpeeled lemon slices and cover with boiling water. Stir and leave covered for 24 hrs or so. Strain and squeeze the result through muslin, add brown sugar to taste, and bring to boil. Immediately turn the heat down and simmer as gently as you may for up to 1/2 hr. Pour into sterilised bottles.
As you can see, I am not giving you quantities - you can make the syrup as thick or thin as you wish. In any form, it is a healthy, indeed healing, nectar, smelling of honey and pollen, in fact it smells like the meadow you picked it at, always reminding you of the sunny day you gathered the flowers.
And for those who like their tipple a little fermented,
DANDELION 'CHAMPAGNE'
Soak the dandelion heads so there are 1/3 dandelions to 2/3 water, with sliced lemon and a generous helping of sugar to help the fermentation process, and leave for around three days in a covered container. When the mixture begins to slightly fizz, pass it through muslin (don't boil your concoction) and bottle it in plastic bottles with the lid not entirely tightly screwed on. Leave in a dark cool(ish) place for about three weeks. Then drink, or screw the bottle tops tightly and place in the fridge for later use.
Enjoy :-)
(By the way this 'champagne' recipe works equally well with elderflowers)

The Czech cuisine?

Well, this family cooks like it's cooked for generations. Their kitchen at the Mill near Cesky Krumlov has no electric stoves or kettles, or any other modern gadgets; no gas either, just an old-fashioned, traditional, wood-fired, ceramic-tiled stove that dominates the room and serves to heat the house, bake bread and cook meals, and a drying rack over it for clothes and herbs of all sorts. In fact these kind of stoves even have, at the back of them, at a shoulder height, a platform with fleeces where you can stretch out and rest or sleep if you fancy being really warm and cosy. In the old days, even this sleeping shelf had its function - old people would be put there to ease their last, arthritic, years, or newborn babies, who needed to be away from drafts. Aga eat your heart out!
I took one of my English visitor friends there for tea and he immediately started to photograph the place (this photo is one of his), in fact everyone who goes there is swept away by the genuine warmth of the family who live here and their way of life that refuses Ikea because 'this kitchen works much better, doesn't it?' Indeed it does. And the food cooked there, using their own herbs and the milk form their own goats, tastes so much nicer than anything cooked on electricity or gas. Once a week the family have a bread-baking day, which is just fabulous. The dough rises in straw baskets, then the risen loaves are put on a wooden shovel with a hugely long handle - about 2 meters long because it needs to reach far into the oven. About twelve loaves fit in, together with sweet dough and poppyseed pastries to fill the smaller spaces in between. And when it is all baked, it tastes so good one just stuffs oneself, it's impossible to stop eating this heavenly, crunchy gift with its soft, fragrant and yieldy inside.
So it makes sense that all around us here in the countryside, people who live or are newly acquiring older country buildings, have started to come back to the idea of such stoves now: for their better tasting food, and also for the economy and ecology of use. And the stove-makers' business is booming. But maybe the Czechs just won't let go off their fairy-tales they are so famous for: just think how many feature such stoves. The lazy John who refuses to get off his warm place behind the stove (and then becomes King for his trouble:-) ) the old women who brew their magic potions on them, even the German/Czech story of Hansel and Grethel features a stove with a large enough oven to fit the Witch in...

Easter customs 2 - Saturday, Sunday, Monday

This is 'White Saturday', apparently called thus because on this day you should whitewash the house. It is also the last day of the Easter fast, so traditionally women spend the day in the kitchen, making ready for the feast tomorrow. Perhaps the most important task is to bake a 'mazanec' (a big fluffy bun in the shape of a bread-loaf, made from sweet yeast dough) that most people will eat for their Sunday breakfast - but for the observing Catholics the 'mazanec' is to be taken to the Mass on Sunday morning to be blessed, because traditionally this blessed 'bread' would then be divided between neighbours and the needy, and pieces of it, together with wine and eggs, would also be given to the fields, the well, and the fruit trees, to insure good harvest, plenty of water and sufficient fruit for the coming year.
On Monday, the feast truly starts. But apart from eating, for the Czechs this is the day when boys and men go from house to house with their specially platted switches (pomlazka) to symbolically whip the girls and women so they would be rejuvenated and fertile, and the women reward this by giving away their decorated eggs. So should you be in Czecho on Monday, you'll hear much joyful screaming and laughter as the boys tease the girls and as the girls enjoy teasing them back, pretending to be hiding from them, only to be 'discovered' and 'whipped'. You can read more about the eggs and the switches in my previous post, 'Easter preparations', of the 8th March.

Easter customs and traditions

Happy Easter to all that may read this over the Easter holidays :-)

Yesterday, on 'Green Thursday' as the Czechs call it, I breakfasted the traditional 'Judas' pastry. It's a sweet bun made from yeast dough - a little like the British Hot cross bun, except for the cross, as this one tends to be plain brown and platted, to symbolise the rope by which Judas hanged himself (you can also see a nice photo on http://www.zubrnice.cz/images/vel_jidas.jpg which I can't publish for copyright reasons). Alas, to my shame I didn't do anything else that's required of a good householder on this day: one should get up really early, before sunrise, and sweep all ills out of the house, then wash with morning dew (or snow as the case may be) and take any sweepings to the crossroads, so as to avoid fleas in the year to come! One should then throw a piece of the Judas pastry spread with honey into the well to insure plenty of water. Good Christians would then ritually wash eachothers' feet and go to morning mass, and again to mass in the evening. This is the last time the bells are rung because the tradition has it bells fly off to Rome on the Thursday night. That's why a custom of rattling special wooden rattles has developed, an extremely noisy custom enjoyed mainly by young boys and men, which persists throughout the Easter weekend, during which all bells must remain silent. (by the way these rattles are similar to the ones football-fans use nowadays!) In some areas, people would also beat mortars with pestles, or rattle coins in their pockets, to ensure wealth in the coming year.

Good Friday (Great Friday in Czech), though very much observed as the Christian Passion day even by otherwise religiously tepid people, also has its folk beliefs and rituals - some more or less forgotten, some still enjoyed by many. Maybe the strongest belief is that you are not to disturb the soil on this day: it is a magical day when the earth may open up to reveal hidden treasures - if you walk out into the countryside at dusk, such a place will show itself by luminescent ferns, or by nooks and caves in rocks, issuing faint light. Altogether this was always seen as a day strong in magical powers: witches and watersprites were supposed to roam about, and you were not to lend anything to anyone as it may come back to you bewitched. On this day you would get up before sunrise and wash in a running stream, and observe a fast. Women would spin special 'passion threads' that they would sew into their shirts to guard against evil eye and lightning, and men would roam about with their noisy rattles....

Nowadays, with Tescos and others open day and night through most of the weekend, and offering ready-made Easter eggs and Judas pastries and all, will commerce win over tradition? Hope not: as I walked into my neighbour's house this morning, there was a huge mound of eggs in various stages of finish strewn on the kitchen table, and although Krumlov itself seems oddly silent, and later as I went to the riding stables at the nearby village, I heard the bold rattles laughing their wooden cackle in the distance.

Easter preparations

It's coming up to Easter, and people are busy with their preparations - they do take their Easters seriously in this country. Of course it's a major Christian holy time, but it's the pagan customs that seem to dominate the early Spring here. The houses sprung flowerpots and boxes with willow branches hung with decorated eggs and ribbons, and women are busy baking Easter lambkins (see blog entry below for the recipe) and 'mazanec' pastries, and of course, decorating eggs - the most important part of their pre-Easter activities.
The men, meanwhile, are prowling the countryside searching for the most moist and bendy willow shoots from which they'll be making their special 'whips' with which to symbolically beat their women in exchange for the eggs and the cakes, of course with some slivovi to make the cakes go down.
I will report on how this Easter goes, but for now I'll stay with the preparations. The egg decorating is a fine art, honed by generations of women who pass their know-how on, and with very defined regional variations, indeed almost every village has some particular design or particular method of egg-decorating. The techniques vary from simple painting to elaborate wax batique or scratching, some are even clad in fine lace. The designs are abstract, but very meaningful, and the women here mostly know what all the symbolism means to every detail.

Same with the whip-making, like the egg symbolism a fertility rite: there are so many ways of plaiting the whip, from simple three or four shoots strong, to a twelve-shoot, complex, design. It the duty of the elderly men in the community to teach the boys this art, and some villages even make a communal whip, competing in its length with the neighbouring groups of men. Very phallic, of course, but that's the fun of it.

Well, we've been lucky to have neighbours who are incredibly dilligent about their folk traditions so each year we get to be included, and our visitors too. So we're learning to decorate the eggs and to plait the whips, and it's been great to watch the British men struggle with the unforgiving willow, coming up with variously bent and sorry-looking creations next to the expert perfection of the old man's from next door, but it's all in good humour, because we all know that only years of practice make perfect :-)

You can go to www.radio.cz/en/html/paint.html (last year's but no matter) for Easter customs and pictures of all sorts of regional egg-decorating designs, and where you can also read about the whip-making, with instructions. Or search your Google images for 'kraslice' (decorated eggs), many different designs come up.

I'll write more on the subject as we get nearer the dates, meanwhile I shall be stocking up with eggs: only my own decorating is a bit freer than the tradition would allow! Here's my Easter bunny with three Easter Graces.

Easter Lamb Cake

Velikonocni beranek - Easter Lambkin Cake

I was given an old Czech pottery cake mould in the form of a rather thin lamb. It's in two parts and sits on hand formed feet, the fingerprints still visible in the clay. The moulds are still sold but the modern lambs are fatter with fewer details in the modelling.
This is a traditional yeasted recipe from Jana, who seems to know by instinct or long experience what to do - there's no advice how long it will take to cook or at what temperature. I used my baking lambkin mould to make a rich sponge cake which worked well and took about 40 minutes. There are three grades of flour in Czech cuisine, the one mentioned is 'half coarse' but our regular soft cake flour will do.

500g 'polohrube' flour
120g butter
120g sugar
pinch salt
30g fresh yeast
500ml warm milk
4 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla essence
zest of 1/2 lemon
handful raisins
handful slivered or chopped almonds

butter to grease the form
breadcrumbs for lining the form

Mix 1/2 cup of the milk, teaspoonful sugar and the yeast . Leave in a warm place to go frothy.
Pre-heat the oven to a moderate temperature - about 180 C/ gas 4
Beat the butter, sugar and yolks until pale.
Add vanilla, lemon zest and salt.
Beat in the frothy yeast mixture with spoonsful of the flour and as much milk to make a pliable dough. Knead this dough until smooth and glossy.
Lastly add the raisins and almonds.
Thoroughly grease the baking form, dust with the breadcrumbs (or caster sugar and flour) tap the form to loosen any excess .
Place in the dough in the bottom half and allow to rise untilit reaches the top of the form. Place the lid on top
Bake in a moderate oven, and turn the form half-way throughbaking.
When baked gently release from the form, (the steam from the hot cake should help loosen it. If not, going at it with a knife might leave you with something you'd rather the children didn't witness) dust with icing sugar and add raisins for eyes.

Then you have to decide which end to slice from. I haven't worked out what that choice says about a person or whether it has any effect on the year to come.

Dobrou chut'

Ice or not ice? (lake house)

In response to Potok's question below, the skiers are not dragged over ice but over a snowy field. Great stuff, especially when done quite fast! There is a small and very friendly stable nearby with whom we have been able to develop a really lovely relationship so we can do fun stuff like that - would be interesting to know whether Health and safety people would like to see this, though, so I'd better not tell you who they are (anyway that would be advertising and we have vowed not to).
But here is positively the last ice and snow pic, just to show you how one can indeed walk on water. The lake in question is Olsina, actually a very old man made pond (15C) that used to belong to the Rozmberk aristocratic family (between them and various big monasteries they owned practically the whole of South Bohemia) and was - still is - used to farm carp. Each two years the pond gets drained so the carp-farmers can get at the fish more easily as the water recedes. It's fascinating to watch because it looks like the water is boiling with all the fish fighting for the diminishing amount of space in the rapidly draining water. Nowadays the fish is sold at Christmas time as carp is the traditional Christmas dish in Czecho.
My goodness, I seem to've veered very far from my original blog theme. Oh well.