VELKONOČNÁ CALTA-VELKONOČNÝ MAZANEC

EASTER SWEET BREAD

During Easter I have tried this recipe, made the calta and got it blessed at Easter Saturday's Mass as the St.'s Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic Church in New Westminster by Father Kadlec.

I always wanted to bake this bread as I remember my late mother used to bake a similar one every Easter in Slovakia and we really liked it with ham, eggs, pickle and horse relish. It was real treat.

Few years ago while visiting the open-air museum of Liptov's village Pribilina I have bought a book called "Ceremonial Holk Baking" and here is the recipe for all of you:

Ingredients needed:

7 Oz of icing sugar, 9 Oz of butter, 4 Egg yolks, 35 Oz of regular flour four teaspoons of dry yeast, salt, milk, 4 Oz of raisins, 4 Oz of almonds, one egg for glazing.

Mix butter, egg yolks and sugar, add salt, flour, dry yeast, milk. Make a tough dough and let it rise. Later separate the dough into two equal portions, depending on the baking forms and add in equal amount of the raisins and most of the pealed almonds cut up into slices. Put the dough to the forms and let it rise again. You can see on the picture I did some designs.

In Slovak they are called "Jidase" and they are ancient tradition. You can make a bird or other rolled designs by separating some dough before adding the raisins and almonds. After you finish your designs glaze the calta with beaten egg.

Bake until golden.

Bibliography:

Ludove obradne pecivo, Eva a Frantisek Kyselica, Praca, Bratislava 1991

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Published in the Slovak Heritage Live newsletter Volume 2, No. 2, Summer 1994
Copyright © Vladimir Linder 1994 
3804 Yale Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5C 1P6
The above article may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or redistributed by any means including electronic, without the express written permission of Vladimir Linder. All rights reserved.