Baking "crosses" at the veneration of the cross - recipes, recommendations. Crosses were baked... Dough crosses for the week of the cross
Sunday of the third week of Great Lent is called the Week of the Cross.
On Saturday evening, at the all-night vigil, the Life-giving Cross of the Lord is solemnly brought into the center of the church - a reminder of the approaching Holy Week and Easter of Christ. This year the Week of the Cross (Sunday) is March 23. During the Week of the Cross, as a reminder of the Savior's approaching suffering on the cross, crosses are traditionally baked - cookies made from rye or wheat flour, unleavened or sour dough in the shape of a cross. Having broken the cross, in previous years they said: “Half the cross is half the fast.” Crosses may differ in size, but they are always of a similar shape; most often they are made symmetrical, equilateral, with four rays. To do this, two equal strips of dough are placed on top of one another in a cross shape (these are “simple” crosses).
or the rolled out dough is cut into “crosses” with a mold or knife (these are “cut-out” crosses).
Sometimes they are made even simpler - in the form of round cakes, on which the image of a cross is applied. Recipes for cross dough.
Almond crosses
150 g peeled almonds,
½ cup boiling water
100 g honey,
1 lemon slice with skin about 1 cm thick,
½ tsp each cinnamon and nutmeg,
¼ cup olive oil,
250 g wheat flour,
50 g rye flour,
2/3 sachet of baking powder.
Wash the almonds and pour boiling water for 10 minutes. Add honey, butter, a slice of lemon and grind with a blender. Mix flour, baking powder and spices. Pour the nut-honey syrup into the flour and knead the dough, which should eventually be rolled into a ball.
Leave the dough in the refrigerator for half an hour, then roll it out into a thin layer (about 5 mm) and cut out crosses. Bake at 190 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
Lemon crosses
250 g lean margarine,
3 cups flour,
1 cup potato starch,
1 tbsp. l. baking powder,
2 packets of vanilla sugar,
zest of 1 lemon,
1 glass of water.
Chop margarine with flour and starch. Add sugar, baking powder, finely grated zest and replace the dough with very cold water (from the refrigerator). Make crosses by pressing raisins into the crossbars and bake.
Crosses on pickle
1 glass of cucumber pickle,
1 cup refined sunflower oil,
1 cup of sugar,
100 g coconut flakes,
2-3 cups of flour.
Mix butter, sugar, brine, half the chips and flour. Knead the dough as thick as shortbread. Roll out, sprinkle with remaining coconut shavings. Cut out the crosses, place on a baking sheet lightly sprinkled with flour and bake at 180 degrees for 5-8 minutes. Instead of coconut flakes, you can use poppy seeds, lemon zest, candied fruits, dried apricots, cut into small pieces or dried orange peels crushed in a coffee grinder.
In Russia there are traditional dishes that were prepared for a specific day. “Larks” - on the day of remembrance of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste - this is March 22 in the new style, “ladder” (ladder made of dough) - on the day of memory of St. John Climacus (4th Sunday of Lent), and on the week of veneration of the cross (third Sunday of Lent) Lent) they baked crosses from dough. And the larks, and the crosses, and the ladders were consecrated in the temple, and then they ate.
Ladders, crosses and larks
A third of a glass of vegetable oil, a third of a glass of water, two tablespoons of honey, rye flour - until kneading a plastic dough.
Knead the dough, roll out into thin sausages and form ladders. The number of steps does not matter.
For larks, divide the dough into balls the size of a medium apple, roll out the ball, then make a sausage out of it. We wrap the sausage in a knot and form a lark's head from one end, and a tail from the other.
***
According to Ivan Sakharov, an expert on folk customs, in the capital cities larks were decorated in a special way: raisin eyes were inserted, the head was smeared with honey, and sometimes even the wings were gilded with gold leaf - plates of the thinnest foil made of this precious metal were glued on and distributed to household members, and also sent to relatives." as gifts for children." People believed that a child who received the “fortieth cookie” would be healthy and obedient all year.
In addition, “larks” could be bought on this day in Moscow from almost every church, but the best “fortie” cookies were sold at auction in Okhotny Ryad. They even came up with a saying about this: “In Moscow there are forty forties, and one Okhotny Ryad.”
Boys and girls ran along the street, throwing up and catching the “larks” again, and then, running up, they kissed each other and ate the cookies. And girls of marriageable age and boys went to meet spring in nature. They always sang spring songs and lit bonfires. Those who liked each other, after performing the spring song, gave each other their “larks”.
***
Tethers (also vitushki, tetyorki) are a ritual gingerbread product with a twisted shape, common in the vicinity of the cities of Kargopol and Mezen, as well as in villages along the banks of the Mezen River.
The Northern Russian analogue of the “larks”, “sparrows”, “bullfinches”, “waders”, “magpies”, “cockerels” that existed in different regions of Russia.
Previously, grouse were made with water, from rye or rye flour: “They will pour in vodka, add salt, rye flour and skut.”
This dough comes together easily and thinly. The sausages should be rolled out to 5-7 mm, and then the pattern should be rolled out according to the movement of the sun - clockwise.
Well-baked grouse were greased with linseed oil.
Grouse from rye flour came out black. To make the cookies beautiful, crushed boiled potatoes were added to the wheat flour.
The preparations were taken out into the cold. In the cold they became even whiter.
They rolled out the dough and rolled and greased it sometimes for a whole month. Doing each one is like painting a picture.
The whole family prepared one or two hundred “grouse” each, and curled them in different patterns.
In different places, the “crosses” could differ in size, but were of a similar shape. Most often they were made symmetrical, equilateral, with four rays. To do this, two equal strips of dough were placed on top of one another in a cross shape, or the rolled out dough was cut into “crosses” using a mold. Both manufacturing methods could be found in one area. So, in the Nizhny Novgorod region. “crosses”, which were baked from unleavened dough in two named ways, were called “simple” and “carved”. In some areas of the Ryazan region. “crosses” were baked in the form of round cakes, on which the image of a cross was applied.
Russian peasants believed that these cookies could contribute to a good harvest and the well-being of the farm and family. Thus, Siberians believed that a “cross” eaten in Sredokrestye gives a person health. In Vyaznikovsky district. In Vladimir province, “so that the bread would be born,” the housewife baked rye grain in the middle of the cross; “so that the chickens are kept” - a feather; “to make your head lighter” - human hair, etc. The objects baked into “crosses” were used to tell fortunes about the future; in this case, exactly as many cookies were baked as there were people in the family. The hostess put the crosses in a sieve, shook it several times, after which everyone chose the cross they liked. Whoever gets a coin or a grain will live in prosperity and happiness, coal or a “pechina” - a piece of stove brick - will be in sadness, a ring will get married, a rag will lead to death, and if there is nothing in the “cross” , they said: “Life will be empty.” The cross received along with cookies (pectoral or made from splinters) was regarded differently in different places: in some places it foreshadowed misfortune and death, and in some places it pointed to a person with a light hand, the one who was supposed to be the first to sow the grain (Moscow) . In other places, the first sower became the person who had a coin in his “cross” (Vologda, Kostroma, Moscow, etc.), and in Saratov province. The first handful of grain was to be thrown by the one who found barley grains in his “cross”. To increase the yield, one or more “crosses” were saved until sowing, burying them in the barn in the grain. When they went to sow, they took them with them and, after praying, ate them in the field: in the Kursk province. This is what they did when they sowed oats, so that “the oats would be even.” In the Ryazan region. Before throwing the first handful of grain, the sower did not eat such cookies, but “plowed them into the field” and sprinkled them with earth on the arable land.
Cookies in the shape of a cross, according to popular belief, had a beneficial effect not only on the harvest, but also on the health, safety and offspring of livestock. In the Kaluga and Ryazan provinces, they gave it to the horse they were plowing in the field to eat, for which they made a special “cross” that was significantly larger than the others. In Moscow province. “crosses” were kept “until Yegory” (see Yegoryev day), the day of the first cattle drive to pasture, when they were fed to cows and horses. In Southern Russia, in addition to “crosses”, special breads for livestock were baked from the same dough: small flat cakes or balls - “katukhs”.
In the Middle Volga region - in the Kostroma and Nizhny Novgorod provinces - each housewife baked a large number of “crosses” for children (“knitters”, “podokoshniks”). In Sredokrestye, boys (rarely girls) went around houses singing mischievous “godmother” songs in which they begged for cookies:
"The shit is breaking,
Christ puts on his shoes on the stove,
A tub of milk tips over,
The thread is long, long, long,
Give me more of a cross.
Whoever doesn’t give it, pluck out his eye,
Whoever gives it will receive a silver one.”
Or:
"Auntie, cross -
The shit will crack.
The shit breaks down
It’s getting closer to Easter.”
Or:
“Half the shit is broken,
And the other one rolled down the ravine.
Give a “cross”, give another,
Wash with water."
Or:
"Christ is risen,
Give us a cross
Guslitsy, goslitsy,
The waters of the student,
Don't touch the raven
Don't throw a stone!
Half the shit will roll,
The day of Christ is coming!”
Although at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. rounds turned into child's play, apparently previously they were one of the means of agrarian imitative magic: a ritual of causing spring rain necessary for seedlings. This is evidenced by the request that ends many songs: “Pour water on”; “Water with whatever you want, just give a cross”; “Give a cross, pour a tail,” etc. In some places it was actually customary to pour water on the children in response to their request. The children, like chickens, were placed under a large basket, from there they sang: “Hello, master - red sun, hello, hostess - bright month, hello, children - bright stars! Half of the shit broke, and the other bent!” At the same time, they were doused with water and then given a cross.
In those places in the Nizhny Novgorod region where household visits were not common, crosses were baked according to the number of family members plus one. At the same time, it was customary to give the first baked cross either to a neighbor’s child or to a beggar. In the traditional popular consciousness, children and, to a greater extent, beggars were considered to have a connection with another world, therefore treating them with ritual bread (“cross”) can be interpreted as an offering - a sacrifice to the ancestors, on whom the well-being of the farmer depended.
Cross cookies in some areas of the Nizhny Novgorod region. They were also used in ritual actions that marked the turning point of Lent (“fasting”). In the Semenovsky district they broke cookies with the words: “If the cross cracks, the shit will crack.” In the Pervomaisky district, when they pulled out a cross during fortune telling, they said: “The whole cross is a whole fast,” and when they broke it, they added: “Half the cross is half a fast.” The spoken formula turned into the 20th century. in the game room, goes back to actions of an incantatory nature, the purpose of which was to mark the transition of Lent to its second phase and the approach of Easter.
Sredokrestye was often associated with the approach of spring, while ritual actions with “crosses” were, in the opinion of the peasants, supposed to contribute to its meeting in the same way as similar actions with “larks”. In the Voronezh region. children with freshly baked “chrests” sang chants - stoneflies:
"Gristles, gristles,
What did you grow up with?
On the whip
On the clamp,
On the plow
On the harrow
On the wrong side."
The veneration week of Lent 2019 falls in its middle. Each week of Lent has a special name, reminiscent of one or another event associated with the holy great martyrs, metropolitans, miracle workers, Jesus Christ himself, the Mother of God and the Holy Trinity.
The names convey special differences in church services and in who should offer prayer and worship. This is also connected with special spiritual instructions, perceiving which Christians must unite in a single impulse, supporting each other in deed and word, let it be reflected only in prayer.
The Third Week of Great Lent is dedicated to the veneration of the Honest and Life-Giving Cross. The editors of the site found out when there will be a week of veneration of the cross, in which week of Lent in 2019. What traditions exist, traditions and rituals, as well as the history of this wonderful holiday. And we will share the best recipes for Lenten Cross cookies, which are traditionally baked at home during the week of the Cross.
What is the Week of the Cross and when does it occur?
The name “cross veneration” comes from the fact that in the named week, services in the church are accompanied by bows to the sacred cross on which the Son of God was allegedly crucified (“allegedly” means that Jesus was not crucified on each of the crosses in all churches).
This action - bowing after reading a prayer - occurs four times, starting on Sunday, which is called the Worship of the Cross, and then on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Bowing means tribute to the feat of Christ, the desire to follow him, as well as the acceptance of one’s own burden, one’s destiny, which manifests itself every day in everyday life, such seemingly small deprivations in the form of a reduced portion of food and a complete rejection of worldly entertainment.
The meaning of the Week of the Cross lies on the surface. The people have an expression “carry your cross”; it is directly related to the explanation. During Lent, every Christian tries to bear the burden that lay on the shoulders of Jesus during the days of forty days of abstinence. Everyone experiences their own temptation based on their “weak” point.
This means that in the middle of Lent, the Christian already knew “his cross” and fully felt all the temptations that accompany abstinence, against which he raised his spirit. This is a kind of act of recognizing one’s burden as voluntary, desired.
Also, the cross is a symbol of a reminder of the death of Christ and the result of the entire fast, after which comes the sacred resurrection. Thus, on the Week of the Cross, everyone can feel inspired to continue their fast, realizing for what purpose and what result they are holding their will in their fist.
Story
During the Iranian-Byzantine War in 614, the Persian king Khosroes II besieged and took Jerusalem, taking the Jerusalem Patriarch Zechariah captive and capturing the Tree of the Life-Giving Cross, once found by Equal-to-the-Apostles Helen.
In 626, Khosroes, in alliance with the Avars and Slavs (yes, Slavs!) almost captured Constantinople. Through the miraculous intercession of the Mother of God, the capital city was delivered from the invasion, and then the course of the war changed, and in the end the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius I celebrated the victorious end of the 26-year war.
Presumably on March 6, 631, the Life-Giving Cross returned to Jerusalem. The emperor personally carried him into the city, and Patriarch Zacharias, rescued from captivity, walked joyfully next to him. Since then, Jerusalem began to celebrate the anniversary of the return of the Life-Giving Cross.
It must be said that at that time the duration and severity of Lent were still being discussed, and the order of Lenten services was just being formed. When the custom arose of moving the holidays that occur during Lent from weekdays to Saturdays and Sundays (so as not to violate the strict mood of weekdays), then the holiday in honor of the Cross also shifted and gradually became assigned to the third Sunday of Lent.
Just from the middle of Lent, intensive preparation began for those catechumens who were going to be baptized on Easter this year. And it turned out to be very appropriate to begin such preparation with the veneration of the Cross.
Starting next Wednesday, at each Presanctified Liturgy, after the litany about the catechumens, there will be another litany - about “those preparing for enlightenment” - precisely in memory of those who diligently prepared and were planning to be baptized soon.
Over time, the purely Jerusalem holiday of the return of the Cross became not so relevant for the entire Christian world, and the holiday in honor of the Cross acquired a more global meaning and a more applied meaning: as a remembrance and help in the middle of the strictest and most difficult of fasts.
When and how does the Orthodox week of veneration of the cross take place?
Many of these sources call the 4th week of Lent the Worship of the Cross, which seems quite logical and memorable, given the clue that it falls exactly in the middle of Lent. However, in fact the name
The veneration of the cross begins the week with the Sunday of the same name, which ends the 3rd week of Lent. Consequently, the week of the Veneration of the Cross is the third, despite the fact that a greater number of services with veneration of the cross take place in the 4th week.
On the mentioned Sunday, the first service with bows to the cross takes place. The next one takes place on Monday, exactly one day later. Also on Wednesday and Friday evening of the 4th week, the last service of the Cross takes place, after which the cross takes its place in the altar.
The veneration week of Lent in 2019 falls on March 5th. On this day, the traditional removal of the cross to the middle of the temple hall will take place, so that every worshiper can bow to the ground before it and be inspired by the feat done by Jesus to continue the fast.
During the liturgy these days, the prayer to the Most Holy Trinity, which traditionally accompanies the service every day, is replaced by the prayer hymn “We worship Your Cross, O Master, and holyly we glorify Your Resurrection,” after which bows should be made.
If possible, you should visit all 4 services. The single voice of dozens, turned into prayer, can create a miracle, especially if our will has weakened under the pressure of routine.
Church service
On Saturday evening, at the all-night vigil, the Life-giving Cross of the Lord is solemnly brought into the center of the church - a reminder of the approaching Holy Week and Easter of Christ. After this, the priests and parishioners of the temple make three bows in front of the cross. When venerating the Cross, the Church sings: “We worship Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your holy resurrection.” This chant is also sung at the Liturgy instead of the Trisagion.
The Holy Cross remains for veneration during the week until Friday, when it is brought back to the altar before the Liturgy. Therefore, the third Sunday and fourth week of Great Lent are called “Worship of the Cross.”
According to the Charter, there are four venerations during the Week of the Cross: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Sunday, the veneration of the Cross occurs only at Matins (after the removal of the Cross), on Monday and Wednesday it is performed at the first hour, and on Friday “after the dismissal of the hours.”
Liturgical texts in honor of the Cross are very sublime and beautiful; they are replete with contrasts, allegories, and artistic personification.
Lent 2019: meals in the third week (March 24 - 31)
- March 24 – Sunday
Second week of Lent (second Sunday of fasting). Memorial Day of St. Gregory Palamas.
St. Gregory Palamas lived in the 14th century. In accordance with the Orthodox faith, he taught that for the feat of fasting and prayer, the Lord illuminates believers with His gracious light, as the Lord shone on Tabor. For the reason that St. Gregory revealed the teaching about the power of fasting and prayer and it was established to commemorate him on the second Sunday of Great Lent.
- March 25 – Monday
- March 26 – Tuesday
- March 27 – Wednesday
Dry eating: bread, water, greens, raw, dried or soaked vegetables and fruits (for example: raisins, olives, nuts, figs - one of these every time). Once a day, around 15.00.
- March 28 – Thursday
Hot food that has been cooked, i.e. boiled, baked, etc. No oil. Once a day, around 15.00.
- March 29 – Friday
Dry eating: bread, water, greens, raw, dried or soaked vegetables and fruits (for example: raisins, olives, nuts, figs - one of these every time). Once a day, around 15.00.
- March 30 – Saturday
Hot food that has been cooked, i.e. boiled, baked, etc. With vegetable oil and wine (one bowl 200g) twice a day. Pure grape wine without alcohol and sugar, preferably diluted with hot water. At the same time, abstaining from wine is highly commendable.
On Saturday of the third week, during Matins, the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord is brought into the middle of the church for the worshipers to worship, therefore the third week and the next, fourth, week are called the Worship of the Cross.
Cookies in the shape of crosses for the week of the cross
There was such an interesting Russian folk tradition - baking cookies in the form of crosses on the Cross. Crosses may differ in size, but they are always of a similar shape; most often they are made symmetrical, equilateral, with four rays.
To do this, two equal strips of dough are placed on top of one another in a cross shape (these are “simple” crosses). or the rolled out dough is cut into “crosses” with a mold or knife (these are “cut-out” crosses).
Sometimes they are made even simpler - in the form of round cakes, on which the image of a cross is applied. According to legend, such Crosses “drived away” everything bad from the house and household members.
Ivan Shmelev in his book “The Summer of the Lord” described this custom well. I will give an extensive quote here - Shmelev very vividly showed how such a tradition is inscribed in the order of life and thinking of an Orthodox, church child. Shown the “presentation angle” of this custom:
“On Saturday of the third week of Lent we bake “crosses”: “Cross Worship” is suitable.
“Crosses” – special cookies, with almond flavor, crumbly and sweet; where the crossbars of the “cross” lie – raspberries from jam are pressed in, as if nailed down with nails. They have been baking this way since time immemorial, even before great-grandmother Ustinya - as a consolation for Lent. Gorkin instructed me this way:
– Our Orthodox faith, Russian... it is, my dear, the best, the most cheerful! It eases the weak, enlightens despondency, and brings joy to the little ones.
And this is the absolute truth. Even though it’s Lent for you, it’s still a relief for the soul, “crosses.” Only under great-grandmother Ustinya there are raisins in sadness, and now there are cheerful raspberries.
“Worship of the Cross” is a sacred week, a strict fast, something special, “su-lip,” Gorkin says so, in the church way. If we kept it strictly in the church way, we would have to remain in dry eating, but due to weakness, relief is given: on Wednesday-Friday we will eat without butter - pea soup and vinaigrette, and on other days, which are “variegated”, - indulgence... but on The snack is always “crosses”: remember the “Worship of the Cross”.
Maryushka makes “crosses” with prayer...
And Gorkin also instructed:
– Taste the cross and think to yourself: “The venerable cross” has arrived. And these are not for pleasure, but everyone, they say, is given a cross in order to live an exemplary life... and to bear it obediently, as the Lord sends a test. Our faith is good, it does not teach evil, but brings understanding.”
Recipe for almond cookies "Cross"
Products:
- 150 g peeled almonds,
- 1⁄2 cup boiling water,
- 100 g honey,
- 1 lemon slice with skin about 1 cm thick,
- 1⁄2 tsp each cinnamon and nutmeg,
- 1⁄4 cup olive oil,
- 250 g wheat flour,
- 50 g rye flour,
- 2/3 sachet of baking powder.
How to cook:
Wash the almonds and pour boiling water for 10 minutes. Add honey, butter, a slice of lemon and grind with a blender. Mix flour, baking powder and spices. Pour the nut-honey syrup into the flour and knead the dough, which should eventually be rolled into a ball.
Leave the dough in the refrigerator for half an hour, then roll it out into a thin layer (about 5 mm) and cut out crosses. Bake at 190 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
Honey cross cookies
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of flour,
- 300 g honey,
- 2-3 tbsp. spoon of vegetable oil,
- 100 g peeled nuts,
- 1 teaspoon of spices,
- 1 lemon,
- 1 teaspoon soda, raisins.
Preparation
Grind the kernels of nuts (walnuts, almonds or hazel) thoroughly or mince them, combine with honey, add vegetable oil, spices and finely grated lemon with zest.
Mix the mixture, add flour mixed with soda and knead the dough.
Roll it out, cut crosses with a notch or a knife, put the raisins on top and bake in the oven.
To flavor cookies, you can use various spices: cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, etc., as well as their mixtures.
Lemon crosses
Required:
- 250 g lean margarine,
- 3 cups flour,
- 1 cup potato starch,
- 1 tbsp. l. baking powder,
- 2 packets of vanilla sugar,
- zest of 1 lemon,
- 1 glass of water.
We bake Lenten lemon cross cookies:
Chop margarine with flour and starch. Add sugar, baking powder, finely grated zest and replace the dough with very cold water (from the refrigerator). Make crosses by pressing raisins into the crossbars and bake.
Cookies Crosses with cucumber pickle
Products:
- 1 glass of cucumber pickle,
- 1 cup refined sunflower oil,
- 1 cup of sugar,
- 100 g coconut flakes,
- 2-3 cups of flour.
A simple recipe for Lenten crosses in brine cookies:
Mix butter, sugar, brine, half the chips and flour. Knead the dough as thick as shortbread. Roll out, sprinkle with remaining coconut shavings. Cut out the crosses, place on a baking sheet lightly sprinkled with flour and bake at 180 degrees for 5-8 minutes. Instead of coconut flakes, you can use poppy seeds, lemon zest, candied fruits, dried apricots, cut into small pieces or dried orange peels crushed in a coffee grinder.
Lenten cookie dough Crosses with poppy seeds
Cookies ingredients:
- 25 g poppy seeds,
- 1 cup flour,
- 4 tbsp. spoons of sugar,
- 5 tbsp. spoons of vegetable oil,
- 0.5 teaspoon of soda,
- 3 tbsp. spoons of water with lemon juice
Lenten cookies with poppy seeds Crosses during the week of the Cross - step-by-step recipe with photos:
- Mix poppy seeds with 1 tbsp. spoon of sugar, add 100 g of water, heat for 10 minutes until the water boils. To cover with a lid. Rub the poppy seeds in a mortar until milk of the poppy appears and the characteristic poppy smell appears.
- Pour flour, poppy seeds, 3 tbsp into a bowl. spoons of sugar and rub with your hands.
- Add oil.
- Add soda with lemon juice, add 2 tbsp. spoons of water and knead the dough. Wrap in film and place in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
- Roll out the dough 0.5 cm thick, cut out crosses. Press a raisin into the middle of each cross. Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes.
In the old days, on Wednesday during the week of the Cross, people congratulated people on the end of the first half of Lent. It was customary to bake cross-shaped cookies from unleavened dough. Cookies were baked with prayer. In these crosses they baked either rye grain to make bread, or a chicken feather to raise chickens, or human hair to make the head easier.
A person was considered happy if he came across one of these objects. The cookies were a reminder of the suffering of Christ and that every person has his own cross in life.
There was a custom on the third Sunday of Lent to fumigate the house with vapors of vinegar and mint in order to cleanse the home and drive out the spirit of any disease.
Larks on the day of 40 martyrs, crosses, ladders and other Lenten baked goods are not just traditional Orthodox baked goods in your home, but also an opportunity to once again get your family together for an interesting activity, discuss the meaning of the festive event, and bring joy to loved ones. And these are the milestones of Lent that are very memorable for children.
How to bake larks?
On March 22, on the feast of the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste, larks are baked. For larks, roll out a small sausage of dough (see recipe below), grease with vegetable oil, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon if desired, roll into a rope and seal the edges so that the sugar and cinnamon do not spill out. Then fold the flagellum into a knot so that one end of the knot looks out like a bird’s head, the other will be a tail. Form a beak and make a cut with scissors to make it look more like a beak. Make cuts with scissors on the tail (there will be feathers) and on the sides of the bird (there will be wings). Make eyes from the raisin halves. Bake in a preheated oven at 180-200 degrees for no more than 15-20 minutes. Don't overdry!
On the Week of the Cross (in 2019 - March 31), cookies are baked in the shape of crosses, with raisins or nuts pressed into the place of the crossbars. On the week of St. John the Climacus (in 2019 - April 7), you can bake “ladders” with an arbitrary number of steps. When to bake what depending on the year - check the schedule of services.
The simplest thing is to use store-bought puff pastry or regular yeast dough. If you want to make the dough yourself, here are some recipes.
Lenten yeast dough - recipes
Lenten yeast dough with dry yeast
At 2 tbsp. flour - 1 tbsp. warm water, 1 tsp. instant yeast, 3 tbsp. l. vegetable oil, 1 tbsp. l. sugar, a pinch of salt. Mix the ingredients and let the dough rise a little. For sweet pies and products, increase the amount of sugar.
If you are baking a pie, then for an open pie and a medium-sized baking sheet we use 3 cups of flour. This dough is simple and tasty, and even on non-Lent days in our family we often bake pies from this dough.
Lenten dough - 2 (with live yeast)
Ingredients: 1.5 glasses of water (warm); 0.5 sticks of yeast (not dry!); 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; 3/4 cup vegetable oil (can be from 0.5 to 1 cup); as much flour as you need (about 5 cups).
Dissolve yeast in warm water with sugar, add salt, add sifted flour gradually and at the same time add vegetable oil. Knead the dough, not too dense, soft enough to come off the utensils and hands. Knead well. Cover with a towel, let stand until it rises properly, knead well again. When it rises a second time, knead again, after which you can roll it out.
Roll out not very thin. Allow pies and buns to rest for about 0.5 hour before baking.
To lubricate larks and other sweet products before placing in the oven, use sweet, strong tea.
Lenten pies
The filling for Lenten pies can be very different: potatoes, potatoes with mushrooms, finely chopped pickled cucumbers and herbs, cabbage, carrots, apples.
Pies are good to serve, for example, on Sunday after the liturgy, to once again please the family and emphasize that today is a special, festive day. Or maybe it was name day time for fasting?
Here are some more simple, quick recipes for Lenten baking from ready-made puff pastry - it is sold frozen in stores, usually in the form of a ready-made layer, does not require rolling - defrost and create.
Sweet fruit bagels made from puff pastry
Cut the puff pastry without yeast into small rectangles. As a filling, use slices of apples, hard pears, and in season - unripe peaches, plums, you can add pieces of nuts. Place a little filling in the middle, pinch 2 opposite ends, bake in a preheated oven at 180-200 degrees until golden brown (about 15 minutes). Sprinkle hot bagels with powdered sugar, you can mix the powder with cinnamon.
Sweet open puff pastry pie
You can bake a large pie from puff pastry dough. Spread the dough on a baking sheet, raise the sides, lay out the fruit filling - everything is like for bagels, you can add banana slices, jam (the sides will not allow it to leak out). The photo shows a pie baked on the Feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, so it is decorated with a “palm branch” made of dough.
Pineapple rings
The option is more complicated. You will need puff pastry without yeast, 1-2 cans of canned pineapple rings (depending on the volume and number of rings) and a little starch. Cut the dough into strips about 1 cm wide so that they fit inside the ring. Dip the rings in starch to prevent the juice from oozing out. Wrap each ring with strips of dough through the middle and bake in a preheated oven at 180-200 degrees for about 15 minutes. In the photo, the rings are decorated with strawberries, but it turns out delicious even without them.
