Advent Sunday - SPOTLIGHT ON LITHUANIAN CULTURE: Christmas cookies 🍪 🎄“Kūčiukai“ - is a traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner dish which are eaten during Christmas Eve dinner and also “eaten” by the departed souls of their ancestors overnight. It is no wonder that kūčiukai are called “the bread of ghosts“ and “the bread of the Last Supper.“ They are also a symbol of love!
And here’s the recipe for Kūčiukai:
🎄500 g of flour
🍪250 ml of milk
🎄20 g of fresh or 7-10 g of dry yeast
🍪100 g of sugar
a pinch of salt
🎄2 tablespoons of oil
🍪50 g of poppy seeds
🍪🍪🍪How to make it🍪🍪🍪🍪
Sift the flour.
Warm the milk slightly tohe room temperature.
Mix dry yeast with a pinch of sugar and warm milk.Add sugar and oil.
Add a little less than half the flour to the milk mixture, mix well. The dough will be thick, but not yet kneaded. Cover the bowl with the dough with a clean towel and leave it warm for about half an hour.
Add the remaining flour and poppy seeds to the dough. The dough will become kneadable. If it seems too sticky, add a little more flour.
Knead the dough for at least 5 minutes so that it becomes soft, shiny and does not stick to your hands. Then cover it again, put it in a warm place and let it double in size in 1-1.5 hours.
Knead the risen dough again, squeeze out the air.Peel off a small piece, roll it into the smallest possible roll, cut it into small pieces and place it on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
Bake in an oven heated to 190 °C. Baking time depends on the size of the cookies, about 10 minutes.
Leave the baked cookies to cool.
Enjoy!
