Croatia - Pinca

In Croatia, on Easter they eat pinca - a pie with lemon or orange zest, dried fruits, raisins or candied fruits. Many people still, according to the old tradition, make a cross-shaped pattern on the pinza before baking. In addition to the pie, ham is usually served on the table, boiled eggs, radishes and green onions. Like us, Croats bless food during the Easter service.

UK - hot cross buns

On Good Friday, the British eat hot cross buns - spiced buns decorated with a cross pattern. One of the superstitions says that buns baked on Good Friday do not spoil for a whole year - just like Epiphany water among the Orthodox. And on Easter itself in Britain it is customary to cook roast lamb.

Germany - Easter lamb (Osterlamm)

It seems that one of the cultural borders of Europe runs somewhere in Germany. To the west of it, in France and Great Britain, lamb dishes are prepared for Easter, and to the east they prefer to eat sweets like Easter cakes and paskas for the holiday. The Germans do both - they prepare sweet pies in the shape of lamb.

France - wicker baskets (“cavagnats”)

In France, every city has its own Easter baked goods. So in Auvergne these are large thick pancakes “pachades”, and in Savoy they are “cavagnats” wicker baskets with red-painted eggs placed in them, in Touraine these are gingerbread cookies in the shape of horses.

Italy - Colomba Pasquale or Colomba di Pasqua

As with pizza, you are unlikely to find two identical colombas in Italy - each has its own recipe. This tall, dryish pie is made from yeast dough with the addition of grated orange zest, candied fruits or raisins. It is baked in the shape of a dove (the literal translation of the Italian name is “Easter dove”), and sprinkled with almond pieces and sugar on top. It turns out to be a sweet symbol of peace and resurrection.

Spain - Torrija

Even in Holy Week Spaniards cannot deny themselves the pleasure of eating something sweet. There is no single recipe for torrijas; each family prepares them differently. But general principle simple: slices of bread are soaked with honey and spices in milk, wine or liqueur; then dipped in egg yolk and fried in olive oil. Does it look like our croutons? It seems. But don't tell the Spaniards about this if you don't want to hurt their pride.

In addition to torrijas, the Spanish Easter table will likely include garlic soup and buñuelo - donut-like dough balls with anise. And in Catalonia, whose residents strive to be different from the rest of Spain in everything, they have their own Easter dish Mona de Pascua - a cake with almonds and chocolate, generously decorated Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies and even toy chickens.

Poland - Mazurka

In Poland, at Easter they eat mazurkas - shortbread cookies with fruit and nut fillings. Initially, mazurkas were prepared with plums and apples, but modern recipes more often suggest making cookies with oranges or lemons. It is customary to add chopped almonds or walnuts, and sprinkle powdered sugar on top or decorate with icing.

Bulgaria, Romania - Cozonac

Each country in southeastern Europe has its own name for sweet Easter bread. In Greece it is tsoureki, in Turkey it is cherek, in Bulgaria and Romania it is kozunak. In fact, these are the same as our Easter cakes and Easter cakes. With one difference: the variety of fillings is limited only by common sense and the baker’s imagination. Anything could be inside: from classic cottage cheese and raisins to innovative Turkish delight and pumpkin puree or pistachio, cranberry and blackberry.

Greece - Tsoureki(Τσούρεκι)

In Orthodox Greece, at Easter they eat both roast lamb, as in France and Britain, and sweet tsoureki bread, as in Russia and Bulgaria. On the eve of the holiday, on the evening of Holy Saturday, the Greeks prepare magiritsa - a hearty soup with offal, egg-lemon dressing and herbs. This is the first meat dish to break the fast after Lent, and is traditionally made from the liver of the Easter lamb. Magiritsa is usually served at night, immediately after the Easter service.

Finland - Mämmi

If we look for comparisons, the closest analogue of the Finnish Easter dish mämmi is beer with ice cream. It is all the more surprising that they usually eat it on Good Friday. Mummy is a porridge made from rye flour and malt, which is cooked for several hours in the oven, then cooled and eaten with cream or vanilla ice cream. By the way, this recipe was once widespread in Karelia.

Why are Easter cakes baked for Easter? Many people, raised in the traditions of Christianity from childhood, do not even think about where this custom came from, because Easter cake has always been the main decoration of the Easter table, along with Easter cottage cheese and colored eggs.

However, if we turn to history, it turns out that the custom of baking Easter cakes initially appeared not in the Christian, but in the pagan tradition - long before the advent of the Christian cult, and they were baked not once, but three times a year, in honor of the onset of holidays that were significant for the ancients Slavs When did the merger of paganism and Christianity take place? This article is devoted to finding an answer to this question.

With the adoption of Christianity and the beginning of religious rites in the image and likeness of the sacraments performed by the Greek Church, a huge number of words borrowed from Greek language. The word &kulich& is also of Greek origin, meaning & round bread&.

What events are associated with this attribute of the bright holiday?

With the advent of Christian traditions in Rus', traditional Slavic ritual bread began to be called Easter cake and was mandatory attribute Easter meal. It is baked from yeast butter dough with the addition of candied fruits and raisins and has the shape of a tall cylinder, decorated with sugar icing. To make it more decorative, the Old Slavonic Easter cakes were sprinkled with dyed millet. Nowadays, decorative sprinkles are used for this purpose.

Passionate (Great) Saturday preceding Easter is the time for the consecration of Easter cakes, Easter and painted eggs (the question: & why do they paint eggs for Easter? & again refers us to the need to turn to historical reference books).

In every Russian region they used it for baking. different shapes. For the most part, the Easter cake resembled tall church bread - artos, although Vologda peasants baked it in the form of an open berry pie.

Whatever Easter pies are: large or small, narrow or wide, they always have a round shape. This is due to the memory that Christ was dressed in a round shroud.

The fact that Easter bread is baked from a very sweet and rich dough indicates the festivity of this dish, dedicated to a bright event in the history of all mankind. Before the great sacrifice, Jesus and his apostles knew only the taste of bread baked from unleavened dough. After the miraculous resurrection, bread made from unusually tasty, leavened dough appeared on their table.

Easter cakes were modest: the dough from which they were baked contained a huge amount butter and eggs. There are known recipes according to which a hundred eggs were added to two kilograms of wheat flour.

After the seven weeks of Lent, a small piece of the pie was the best food, capable of both creating a feeling of a joyful holiday and preparing the body of a fasting parishioner for a rich festive feast.

They broke their fast (that is, for the first time after fasting they ate light food) with the iconic bread only after Easter church service.

Ritual bread, baked from sour dough, was initially sacrificed to mother earth, ancestors, or natural elements. The purpose of such a sacrifice was the desire to receive their support, thereby ensuring a rich harvest and soil fertility. Ritual loaves were baked on the eve of sowing.

The prototypes of future Easter cakes were initially baked twice a year: at the beginning of spring (marking the beginning of field work) and at the end of autumn (to mark the harvest). In Peter’s times, they began to be baked in winter, in connection with the onset of the new calendar year.

Such frugality was explained by the rather high cost of the resulting product, since their production requires large number valuable and expensive products. In addition, baking technology is characterized by great complexity and duration of the process itself, which makes them exclusively an attribute of a solemn and significant feast.

For some time, holiday bread was used in pagan cult rites along with the practice of Christian customs, as a result of which there was an imperceptible interpenetration of the two cultural traditions. Over time, the pagan meaning of the ritual was forgotten, giving way to the Christian meaning associated with the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Why do baked goods appear specifically on the Resurrection of Christ?

The Christian meaning of the tradition of baking Easter cakes for the holiday is associated with the ancient legend according to which the resurrected Jesus Christ visited the apostles eating. From then on, they always left a place for Jesus in the center of the table, where freshly baked bread was always waiting for him.

Over time, Easter appeared church tradition bake special bread - artos (which is a whole prosphora) and leave it on a special table, in imitation of the actions of Christ's disciples.

On all days of Easter week, artos appears an indispensable attribute religious processions taking place around the temple. On Saturday of Holy Week (after reading the prayer for the fragmentation of the artos), the clergy divide it into parts and distribute it to the parishioners after the end of the church service as a shrine. The distribution of artos is accompanied by kissing the cross.

One of the postulates Christian teaching is the idea that each family is a small church, which on the bright holiday of Easter should have its own artos. The role of such an artos was played by the Easter cake.

Thus, the presence of Easter bread on the table became a symbol of the invisible presence of the Lord in every home. On everyone's table Orthodox Christian On this day there must be Easter cake and Easter. The Church assists believers in every possible way, taking part in their sanctification.

Kulichik symbolically means the bread broken by the risen Jesus during the meal of the apostles.

Holiday bread is distinctive feature between the Passover of Jews and Christians. During the Jewish Passover, only unleavened bread is present on the tables of believers. At this moment, leavened bread is strictly prohibited. Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter by feasting on delicious butter pies.

When placing the dough and kneading the dough, it is necessary to maintain purity of thoughts and a high spiritual attitude, so the housewife at this moment should read a prayer and turn to the Lord with a request to help her prepare a successful Easter cake.

It has long been believed that the type of Easter cake determines the well-being of the entire family for the whole year. Smooth and smooth surface ready-made Easter cake means that family affairs will turn out well. If the cake did not rise well or cracks appeared on its surface, this foreshadows many upcoming disappointments and losses.

Easter cakes are baked in Maundy Thursday, in an atmosphere of comfort, cleanliness and order. A housewife who baked in the old days was sure to wear a clean shirt.

When baking Easter cakes in the house, it was forbidden not only to knock, but also to raise your voice, or to open doors and windows.

In order to prevent the freshly baked pie from settling, it was planted on down pillow until completely cooled. During this time, all household members were removed from the kitchen to prevent the occurrence of drafts and extraneous air flows accompanying any movement.

The cake is cut not lengthwise, but crosswise, into rings. If necessary (if Easter cake large diameter) these rings can be cut radially.

The top part of the Easter cake is saved until the last moment (until the last piece of pulp is eaten), using it as a lid that protects the tender pulp of the Easter cake from drying out.

Easter cakes are baked taking into account the number of members in the family. The cake must be distributed throughout Easter week: Each family member should receive one piece daily.

Unlike European varieties of Easter bread (for example, English muffin or Austrian Reindling), the Russian version of Easter bread is much lighter both in structure and in the degree of absorption by the human body.

The unique combination of richness and lightness of Easter cake makes it an indispensable product that promotes a gradual and safe transition from observing strict fasting to eating light food.

The leaven for Russian Easter cake is made a week before Easter, and the dough is traditionally made on Maundy Thursday.

Flour intended for Easter cake is sifted at least twice: this helps saturate it with oxygen.

The tub with the created dough is lined with pillows to prevent it from sagging, and during its proofing, loud conversations and walking around the room in heavy shoes are unacceptable.

In the room where Easter cakes are prepared, there must be a constant air temperature, excluding even the slightest temperature changes.

A festive Orthodox Easter cake is unthinkable without prayers read over it.

Easter cake is a favorite treat for many. There are many variations of this dish and dozens of recipes. But we must not forget that “paska” is an important attribute of the holiday, therefore certain traditions are associated with its preparation and use. First, let's learn the history of the appearance of Easter cake. And then we’ll figure out how to prepare it correctly from the point of view of Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

Why they started baking Easter cakes for Easter - the history of the tradition and what this word means

In church books, Easter cake has been mentioned since apostolic times - this is 1-50 AD. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he came to his disciples during lunch. Therefore, they left bread for the Savior. Over time, the tradition passed into the church. The monks baked holy arthos for the holiday, which remained untouched until the day of the holiday. After the morning prayer service, refreshments were distributed to the parishioners.

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What does Easter cake symbolize?

Easter cake was considered a symbol of the divine presence, as if at the moment of breaking the fast Jesus condescended to people. This, in turn, led to the fact that families also began to bake Easter cakes. Everyone wanted God to visit his home. Over time, many forgot the reason, but the ritual remained unchanged. Even if people don’t cook themselves, they always buy Easter cake before the holiday.

Origin and meaning of the word: Easter cake

This word itself comes from the Greek kollikion, which translates as “round bread”.

Which cake is correct: yeast, without yeast or another?

The most popular varieties are cottage cheese and yeast cakes. On store shelves you can find chocolate, cream, and fruit options, but there are much fewer of them. So which option is considered correct from a church point of view?

According to legend, after the end of Christ’s life, the apostles ate only Lenten bread, as a sign of great mourning. But after a wonderful Sunday, they began to eat fermented bread (or, in modern terms, yeast bread). Initially, Easter cakes were neither sweet nor made from cottage cheese, and, moreover, did not contain fruit additives.

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A mandatory condition was to decorate the top of the Easter cake with the inscription “ХВ”, and on the sides to make drawings of spears, crosses, wreaths or other symbols of the crucifixion. The lack of cookbooks before the beginning of the 18th century makes it impossible to accurately trace the recipe, but raisins and sugar began to be added to Easter cake only in the early 1800s. A The cylinder shape, which is traditional today, became widespread only in the twentieth century. Before this, Easter cakes resembled ordinary loaves.

Spring is a time of renewal and awakening of Mother Nature, and it is not for nothing that the main Christian holiday is always celebrated in the spring. The celebration of the bright Resurrection of Christ has its own traditions, and one of the most enduring is ritual dishes for the festive table. Traditional Easter baked goods are Easter cottage cheese and Easter cake, which symbolize the tomb of Jesus Christ and his body, and colored eggs speak of shed blood. There is probably not a single family where they do not prepare a single symbolic dish for this bright holiday, and every housewife tries to diversify the menu.

Therefore, the main baked goods for Easter are Easter cakes, and Easter cakes are an incredibly tasty curd dessert, the main feature of which is the density and shape of the curd mass. Very often the concepts of these ritual dishes are confused, so we will try to clarify their fundamental difference.

Easter

Orthodox Christians call Easter cottage cheese pie, which can be prepared in several ways:

• Easter without baking is made from fresh cottage cheese, with the addition of cream or sour cream, butter, eggs, raisins, candied fruits and other additives. Such pies are completely ready for consumption only after squeezing out excess liquid, so they are placed under a press for several hours. Traditional Easter desserts made from cottage cheese should be shaped like a truncated pyramid (quadrangular or rounded).
• Easter custard is a type of cottage cheese pie without baking, but the cottage cheese itself is brought to a boiling point (brewed), then the cooled mass is mixed with various additives. The curd mixture is placed in a mold with a sieve and the resulting curd is allowed to drain and compact.
• Baked Easter is a cottage cheese pie baked in the oven at low temperature for at least 1 hour. Here dried fruits, candied fruits, nuts, etc. are also added to the cottage cheese.

The general requirement for traditional Easter desserts is to thoroughly grind the cottage cheese in order to obtain complete homogeneity of the fermented milk product.

Kulichi

Kulich is an Easter butter bread baked in special cylindrical molds. The top of the Easter cake is decorated with a cap of whipped egg whites or covered with glaze, and sprinkled with multi-colored colored millet. This one is traditional appearance Easter cake is usually called “Easter”. But this is not entirely correct, as you understand.

All Easter cakes have a special recipe, which includes yeast, butter (margarine), sugar and a wide variety of additives. As a rule, the recipe is designed so that the rich bread does not go stale for a long time and has an exclusively Easter aroma that cannot be confused with any other! To obtain such a high-quality product, the dough should be kneaded for a very long time - for uniform porosity and long-term softness of the cake.

In addition to paskas and Easter cakes, each housewife has her own baking recipes for Easter: rolls, babas, cookies, muffins and gingerbreads.

Easter women

“Babas” are also becoming very popular baked goods. special kind baking with lots of beaten eggs. Babas turn out to be very fluffy, loose and unusually aromatic products. The peculiarity of such desserts is that they practically do not go stale for a long time. It is because of this that they are becoming more and more popular among home cooks every year.

Butter rolls

As one of the favorite Easter baking options, rolls with poppy seeds, raisins, nuts, dried fruits and cottage cheese have the right to take their rightful place on festive table on the bright day of the Resurrection of Christ. Rolls can be made from either rich or salty dough. Rolls with various meat, mushroom or fish fillings are served as a snack, and sweet rolls are served as an option for Easter pastries.

Cookies, gingerbread and cupcakes

When there are children in the family, bake small products for them with the symbols of the holiday - great way show the children that their tastes are also taken into account. Most housewives bake small Easter cakes for their children so that the little ones feel involved in the general celebration of the Resurrection of Christ.

But, if instead of traditional pies you make gingerbread or cookies, pour them with icing of different colors and decorate them with bright millet - would such delicacies be superfluous in the holiday menu? Won't adults also enjoy the variety of these delicious flour dishes?

Whatever baking recipes you choose for Easter, all these products have one thing in common - this is their bright design and decoration in a recognizable style: whipped egg whites, milk icing, colored sprinkles and other decorations.

Have a delicious Easter week!