The delicate heritage of Czech cuisine: A recipe for Boží milosti

UM: A space for learning and innovation

We're people from the kitchen, behind bar and coffee machine. UM is our shared space to cook, taste, learn, discover and experiment. It's open to all gastronomy professionals who have a taste for shared learning and inspiration.

Come experiment with us!

Although Czech cuisine has become less pious than before, we are not giving up foods that once represented more than a treat. Boží Milosti (translating to 'God's graces') were meant to give people God's blessing, and embodied kindness and rejoicing in abundance. Perhaps that is why they have been a tradition in our country for an incredibly long time, and exclusively festive - they were fried at Shrovetide or on Easter Monday, hung on wedding cakes or in the wheat plaits of the harvest, and they were given as gifts to women after childbirth.

The white colour of the raw ingredients used is also symbolic, but also served as sacrificial objects for the "good spirits". They were said to be taken to the fields or fried by the farmer for the ploughmen before they started work in the spring. It was believed that pilgrims could see the right direction of travel through their decorative cut-outs. Today, we look to recipes that keep these traditions, and allow us to celebrate as we should!

Mohlo by
vás zajímat

Mohlo by vás zajímat

Traditional Czech Masopust dishes

Four doughs, one winner

Culinary references need to be revisited to see if they are relevant to the present day. This is also the purpose of the space in the UM research centrewhere, in January, the topic of fats and the ongoing Carnival was front and centre, including the aforementioned sweets. On this occasion, the creative chefs tried out four different doughs based on old cookbooks and their own family experience.

They tested Marie Úlehlová-Tilschová's noodle dough and a recipe from a friend, chef Jirka Horákand his grandmother, inspired by Maria Hrubá's Our Cookbook. In both cases, flour, sugar, butter, egg yolks and rum are repeated, but the second version contains sour cream, and extra butter and egg yolks, so they are gracefully soft, almost doughnut-like, and don't crunch as much as the recipe by creative chef Michal Daňek's grandmother from Strážnice. She first makes a dough of flour and butter (in a ratio of 1 : 1) and then rolls it in another dough of flour, egg yolks, milk, cream and beer. The resulting dough is rolled out and folded several times, for crispness and flakiness after frying.

In the final round, the winner was Marie B. Svobodová and her recipe. It led to the best taste and texture and also to the understanding of what and why the dough requires from beginning to end:

1. The greater the proportion of egg yolks, the less fat the fried dough absorbs. The same result is caused by a certain amount of alcohol (white wine, beer or rum), which will promote the crispness of the pastry. Sour cream enhances its flavour.
2. Time is also an ingredient! It pays to let the dough rest for at least 15 minutes, and roll it out two or three times. Resting benefits the gluten, which in turn benefits the dough, making it easier to work with later.
3. Boží milosti have decorative jagged edges, cut with a knife, and their shape is the result of personal decision and skill. The pastry takes the form of diamonds, squares, rectangles, circles, flowers and ridges, cut or twisted in various ways, some as large as a human palm.
4. The dough is fried quickly and in a thicker layer of fat (as for doughnuts), which is heated to a high temperature and a suitable over-frying point. Although the recipes recommend mostly lard, clarified butter or a combination of butter and oil in a 1:1 ratio give great results.
5. The fried sweets are coated in sugar, but should first be drained of fat and left to cool slightly. While you wait, mix the icing sugar with vanilla or, better still, cinnamon.

Recipe for Boží milosti by Marie B. Svobodova (1894)

Ingredients:

• 140 g butter (chilled)
• 280 g plain flour
• 4 egg yolks
• 4 tablespoons sour cream
• large spoonful (15 g) of icing sugar
• pinch of salt

For the coating:

• icing sugar
• ground cinnamon

Procedure:

1. Cut the cold butter and work it into the flour by hand on a rolling board. Gradually combine the ingredients into a crumb-like mixture that has a loose consistency. The procedure in the cookbook bears a striking resemblance to the French technique (and dough name) "sablé", or sand.
2. Add the egg yolks, sour cream, sugar and salt to the flour and butter mixture, and work into a smooth, stiffer dough. Let it rest for 15 minutes in the refrigerator. At room temperature, the dough would loosen and would not roll as well, due to the high butter content.
3. Roll out the dough into a thin sheet, fold it three times and let it rest again for 10 minutes. Repeat the step twice more, as you would for puff pastry.
4. Refrigerate the folded dough for 2 hours.
5. Roll out the rested dough to a thickness of 2-3 mm and form it into any shape you like. Svobodová prefers rounds, in the middle of which she cuts out crosses.
6. Place the prepared dough pieces in hot fat and fry until golden on both sides.
7. Once drained and cooled, coat them evenly in icing sugar and cinnamon. Some people like them properly sweet, others just subtly sugared for beauty.