Tag Archives: lithuania

Kūčios: Christmas Eve Feast in Lithuania

Linksmų Kalėdų! (Merry Christmas – in Lithuanian!) In Lithuania, the traditional Christmas Eve meal is called Kūčios, which includes 12 traditional dishes, representing both the 12 apostles and the 12 months of the year. The meal is typically meat and alcohol free, and includes such dishes as herring, kūčia (a sweetened grain dish), sauerkraut, cranberry Kisielius (Kissel) and sweet biscuits known as Kūčiukai in Poppyseed milk. The whole dinner is usually kicked off with the sharing of a Christmas Eve wafer, Kalėdaitis, which is much like a communion wafer. Draugas News has a list of Kucios recipes, as does the Maskoliunas Family project. Beyond the special food, there are other traditions celebrated including putting straws/hay under the tablecloth. The straws are then pulled out, and the state of the straws indicate the fortunes for the coming year.

Kucios Dinner by Send Me Adrift

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Pastry Post-Doc: Lithuanian Christmas tree cake (Šakotis)

lithuaniaWe first saw these show-stopping Lithuanian Christmas tree cakes – Šakotis –  for sale by the Lithuanian Club of Cleveland at a cultural fair. Though you may see Sakotis for other special celebrations in Lithuania, they are associated with Christmas – especially since they look like Christmas trees! The cake is made by pouring batter over a rotating, horizontal spit over a heat source. The batter is simple – just sugar, eggs, flour and sour cream – and as the batter is poured over the spit, tree-like layers begin to form.

sakotis

Other cakes made on a spit are found throughout Central and Eastern Europe with different names: like the German Baumkuchen, Polish sękacz, Czech Trdelník and Hungarian Kürtőskalács. Unless you have all this special equipment, you probably won’t be able to make Sakotis at home – but you can buy them straight from the Lithuanian Club of Cleveland online.

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Filed under Holidays, Pastry Post-Poc