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| Ready to rise again for 45 minutes |
According to that infallible source, Wikipedia,
Vánočka is a bread, baked in Czech Republic and Slovakia (in Slovak called vianočka) traditionally at Christmastime. It is rich in eggs and butter, making it similar to brioche. Lemon rind and nutmeg add color and flavor; the dough can also contain raisins and almonds, and is braided like challah. A vánočka may be built from three progressively smaller braids, stacked on top of each other; this is sometimes interpreted as a rough sculpture of the baby Jesus wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.
It has a reputation for being difficult to prepare, so in many households, superstitions and special customs are attached to the baking process. When making vánočka, it is said that you must think of everyone dear to you. Another custom is to avoid touching silver or metal to the vánočka. Finally, the person who is making the vánočka should jump up and down while the dough rises.
The bread is named after Vánoce meaning Christmas in Czech (Vianoce in Slovak).Our (I did the kneading!) vánočka is rising right now and no one is jumping up and down except Rocky. I mentioned what the entry said about vánočka's reputation to Mr. Big Food, and he said, "No it isn't!" with the same inflection he'd have used if I had said that the Earth was flat.
Recipe & photo of the finished bread below the fold
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| Texas vánočka has almonds and pecans! |
“Christmas Bread”
ADELA SIJANSKY’S
VÁNOČKA
1 yeast cake or 1 package active dry yeast
¼ C warm water
2 C scalded milk
1/3 C butter
½ C sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
6 C flour
½ C chopped almonds, plus more for topping loaf before
baking
½ C mixed candied fruit
½ C white raisins
Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with 1 Tbsp water
Dissolve yeast in warm water. Combine hot milk, butter,
sugar, and salt, and cool to lukewarm. Add beaten egg, yeast mixture, and 1 ½ C
flour, and beat until smooth. Cover and let rise until light. Add ½ C nuts,
fruits, raisins, and enough flour to make a soft dough (about 6 C flour total).
Knead dough until elastic, cover, and let rise 2 hours. Divide dough into 5
equal parts and roll out into equally long strands. Braid three strands, place
on greased baking sheet, and brush with egg wash. Braid remaining 2 strands,
place on top of 3-strand braid, and brush with egg wash. Sprinkle with
additional chopped almonds. Cover with kitchen towel soaked with hot water and
wrung out, and let rise 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 350o. Bake 45
minutes.
~~
On a tip from Mr. Big Food's Mom, he used dried fruit (peaches) rather than candied to make the loaf less sweet. And of course, Texas pecans in addition to almonds. He has no idea who Mrs. Sijansky is.
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| We'll keep one half and give the other to the very nice older lady who fed and cared for our old old dog while we traveled to newNorth Carolina. |
"Braid remaining 2 strands..."
ReplyDeleteNo can do. You can twist them, but if you have only two strands, it isn't a braid. It just _isn't_!
(And an "oh yeah"..."Brain" {first word, seventh line of Adela's recipe} should be "Braid". Finger freeze, I expect.)
"He has no idea who Mrs. Sijansky is."
ReplyDeleteWe lived in Georgia for a couple of years. My next door neighbor and I shared recipes and coffe klatched together while the kids played. In the sharing process, we laughed about the frequency of recipes that were "so and so's whatever"...
So, when Christmas came around, we made "Sue's Ma's Fruitcake" - which probably came from the "Joy of Cooking", because that was my Mom's "bible"...but even now, when I think of fruitcake, it's no longer just "Fruitcake", it's "Sue's Ma's Fruitcake"...!
You probably won't find it anywhere on the web...!
:-)
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the two strand thing.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I'm tired.
Zzzzzzzzzz.
"Brain" corrected. Thanks! Mr. Big Food types the world "brain" fairly frequently so it's understandable.
ReplyDeleteI looked and you are correct! There is no Sue's Ma's Fruitcake on the World Wide Web-- at least not on the first two pages of Bing search hits.
It's an interesting recipe. When making it, you combine all the dried fruits - and it calls for a _lot_ of fruit - and then add the flour. There's so much fruit that when you've added all the flour, you have basically just floured the fruit - it's all coated. Supposedly, that's so it will remain distributed in the mix and not sink to the bottom of the loaves.
ReplyDeleteThen you cream the butter, sugar and eggs, add a bit of rum/bourbon and mix it into the floured fruit. The end result looks more like coated dried fruit than any kind of batter. Such as it is, it goes into loaf pans that have been lined with greased brown paper (grocery bags, cut to size) and baked at a low temp for about an hour or so. Then you take them out, cool them, poke them with a skewer and soak them with rum/bourbon/brandy before putting them away. They should age at least a month before eating, and should be soaked with whatever alcohol you choose about every week or two.
"Joy of Cooking" recommends storing them in an airtight container of powdered sugar. We don't - but I thought that was pretty interesting. Might make for an interestingly flavored powdered sugar! But sugar is pretty resistant to mold and bacterial action if it's kept dry. Ants could be a problem - but not mold. Of course, my old "Joy" was printed prior to the widespread use of plastic...
Stopped by Smart and Final (California bulk type store) last night and picked up some very nice Christmas plastic containers for less than half price... I probably don't need them - but couldn't resist...they're about 8 x 12 x 4 with tight lids for about $!.25 each. There's bound to be _somewhere_ I could use them! Maybe about 6 loaves each...(the small size loaf pans)
Now...if I get organized, I could buy the dried fruit on sale and get them started for next year!
Is it the one that calls for 4 cups of flour and 4 cups of fruit (p 362 in my paperback version with no front cover)?
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to get organized, too. We'll see how that goes!
Don't know - I'll check. I use the handwritten one on an index card that I copied from the index card my Mom used...!!
ReplyDeleteHeh.
I _will_ check, but it sounds about right. I know that I decided it was a pound cake - 4 cups of flour = one pound, 2 cups of sugar = one pound, and one dozen eggs = one pound - but I'll actually check my old copy of "Joy"...
ReplyDeleteChecked "The Joy..."
ReplyDeleteMom's recipe is somewhat different from both of "Joy's" that are similar."Joy's" has two versions in my edition (last copyright 1964), pages 631,632. Mom's calls for 1 pound of flour, but it also says 3 and 1/5 cups as equivalent to one pound. ??? I don't know about that. I probably used the volume measure. Mom's recipe calls for 6 1/2 lbs of dried fruits - 1/2 lb walnuts, 1/4 each of black and English, 2 lbs of raisins, 1 of currants, 1 of pitted dates, one of figs, and 1/4 each of citron, orange peel, lemon peel (candied) and maraschino cherries. Also 1 tsp each of cloves, allspice and cinnamon added to the flour. Joy calls for the eggs to be separated, Mom's doesn't. Mom's says you can sub for the various fruits and nuts, but the total weight should remain the same.
I had the baking temp wrong - it's 275* for both Mom's and Joy's, and time depends on the size of the loaves. Mom's says at least an hour.
So...probably came from Mrs. Callaway instead of the Joy...!
Making it, "Mrs. Callaway's Fruitcake," yes?
ReplyDeleteYeah...but Mrs. Callaway got the "Callaway Cookies" - otherwise known as Toothrotters...!
ReplyDelete(chocolate chips, condensed milk, raisins and coconut!) Really more candy than cookies.