Loaf in the Slavic culture occupied a central place in the wedding and even funeral traditions. Like Easter cake, it is ceremonial bread. Now loaves are mainly used to meet the official important guest. And ordinary people bake them exclusively for the wedding. What distinguishes a loaf from other pastries from sweet pastry? Since this is ceremonial bread, it is served with salt. The bride and groom, whom they met with a loaf, had to pinch off a piece, then dip the bread in a salt shaker and eat it. This symbolized the promise to "taste a pound of salt together." All the wedding guests ate the young loaf. Another distinguishing feature of ceremonial bread from simply delicious pastries is the abundance of decorations. And not just vintage ones like the original cake, but traditional ones. After all, every detail of the decor carried a special symbolic meaning and influenced, as our ancestors believed, on the further joint life of a young married couple. Therefore, the theme of our article will not be baking, but the decoration of loaves. We will present a master class for decorating wedding bread below.
Loafs in the pagan culture of the Slavs
Our ancestors baked this bread even before Christianity came to Russia. Loaf must be round in honor of the sun god Yaril. It was very important that the dough rise. The higher the loaf came out, the greater wealth expected the young. According to sympathetic magic, the woman who kneaded the dough, baked and decorated ritual bread, passed a piece of her fate to the bride. Therefore, only special “loafers” were allowed to such work. They had to be married, happy in marriage and have children. And the widows were allowed to bake only the so-called memorial loaves. Such ritual bread was shared among relatives and friends of the deceased. Now the wedding loaf can be ordered in the cafe-confectionery. But if you put a piece of your soul in bread, this can affect the fate of the young. Previously, the process of kneading dough and baking was accompanied by ritual songs and prayers. Perhaps today you can do without it. But decorating the product remains an important stage. Therefore, you need to know how to decorate the loaf with your own hands.
The symbolic meaning of decor details
Do not forget that this bread is ritual. Therefore, its decor should be approached differently than decorating a cake. What matters here is not fantasy, but knowledge of the symbolic meaning of certain elements. First of all, do not forget to leave a place for a salt shaker. It should be placed strictly in the center of the loaf. Around the salt shaker should be placed floral ornaments. As a rule, this is a pigtail (a symbol of a long relationship), wheat spikelets (the fertility that is identified in a wedding loaf with many children), flowers and leaves (prosperity and prosperity), pigeons and horses, stars (happiness, loyalty). In Ukraine, bunches of viburnum are an invariable attribute on such ritual bread. This is not only a national symbol, but also a sign of love and marital fidelity. Of course, you can take a more modern look at the loaf decoration and decorate its surface with wedding rings, swans, figures of the bride and groom. You can stay true to pagan traditions and display stylized phallic symbols on a loaf . But it’s better to stick to the “golden mean”.
What to make jewelry
Mastic is a fertile material for decoration. Elastic, like plasticine, it is good for sculpting all kinds of figures or complex fragments. In addition, it can be tinted. Mastic and marshmallows will turn the product into a super-elegant wedding loaf. Photos of such culinary masterpieces look impressive. You can create multi-tiered wedding cakes, because mastic (with proper storage) is a very durable material. But if you want to know how to decorate a loaf according to Slavic traditions, you need to learn how to work with the dough. After all, our ancestors did not know what mastic is. They made all the details of the decor from dough. But it is important to know not only how to create decorative elements, but also what to sculpt them from and when to hook on the surface of the loaf.
Dough for loaf decoration
You can put aside some of the material from which we will bake our wedding cake. Based on the fact that the loaf must certainly be large (every participant in the celebration relies on at least a small piece), at least six hundred grams of dough will be needed to decorate the product. But a reservation should be made here. If we decorate our loaf before sending it to the oven, then the pastry during the baking process will blur and mix with the base. Because of this, the details of the decor will be barely visible. Therefore, for decoration they use fresh, like dumplings and dumplings, or shortbread dough. In this case, the details of the decor will be more prominent, convex and retain a clear outline. Modern technology allows us to paint jewelry in various colors. But our ancestors used for these purposes burnt sugar, egg white, buckwheat and rye flour.
Butter dough decorations
So that the decor details do not blur, but remain embossed, they should not be attached to the surface of the pie immediately, but fifteen to twenty minutes before the loaf is ready. An exception may be braids from the dough. Since this is a rather large decoration, it needs more time to bake. In addition, a pigtail, like a barrel hoop, fastens the surface of the wedding cake, preventing the spread of dough. This decor detail is made very easy. Cut three identical strips of dough. In length, they should be two and a half times the diameter of the loaf. We fasten one end of the three strips together. And then weave a braid. We lay it around the perimeter of the top of the product. We hide the tip of the braid under the bottom. After all, this braid should symbolize the infinity of marital happiness. You can weave another small and thin pigtail, decorating it with a place for a salt shaker.
Roses
Flowers on a wedding loaf symbolize family happiness and motherhood. Especially festive look on a rose cake. How beautifully decorate the loaf with this "queen of flowers"? Cut four circles from unleavened dough . We put them on top of each other and roll them up. Break it into two halves, squeezing in the middle with your fingers. Two small roses will come out. To make a large flower, we will resort to another method. Take one circle of dough and twist in the center, spreading the edges beautifully. On top of it we put one more of the same piece, and then another and another, until a magnificent and beautiful rose comes out. We attach leaves to the flowers. To do this, roll out the dough with a thin layer and cut out diamonds. Then with a knife we ​​will make incisions on them to give them a resemblance to rose leaves. With a needle we draw veins on the test.
Floral Ornament Details
Everyone knows approximately what a wedding loaf should look like. The photos present it as round and tall bread, the top of which is decorated with flowers, ears, clusters of viburnum, oak leaves. Stems - this is the easiest to prepare a floral ornament. Stretchy dumpling dough can be rolled into very thin flagella. Viburnum berries can be made even by a child. You need to roll small balls of dough. In the color version, the loaf can be tinted with powder paprika. These balls should be cut in half and put in semicircles in bunches. Creating spikelets (a symbol of fertility) will be somewhat more difficult. Roll out the dough into small sausages (two to three centimeters long). We make cuts from the sides with nail scissors to give a resemblance to ears of wheat.
Swan birds
Pigeons are a favorite character in decorating ritual cakes. But on the Easter cake, this bird symbolizes the Holy Spirit, and on the wedding - peace and love. Therefore, there should be two pigeons. To mold these birds is easy. Roll out strips of dough three centimeters long and 0.5 cm wide. We tie knots at the edges. On one of them, cut the beak with the tip of the knife, and on the second, the tail. Adhere to the main piece of dough. We’ll draw the wings with a needle, and with feather nail scissors we will flap feathers. How to decorate a loaf with two swans? They will be made as easy as pigeons. Finger roll two sausages six centimeters long from the dough. We will stretch each of them so that a large oval (the body of a swan) forms on one end and a small ball (its head) on the other. We fasten both birds to the loaf. We form a beak and eyes on the ball, the flagellum (neck) is beautifully bent. On the oval we make a tail, draw wings and feathers.
Play with color
In order for the decor details to differ as much as possible from the background of the base, you need to know when and how to decorate the loaf. You can stick them at the very beginning, before sending the product into the oven. But then you should not grease them with yolk. In this case, the cake itself will appear rosy, and its jewelry - white. You can go beyond such a monochrome “grisaille” and make a colored loaf. Paints in this case should be burnt sugar, cocoa, turmeric, paprika powder, crushed dry tomatoes. Since the details of the decor of the loaf are also edible, dyes should be exclusively food.
How to “stick” jewelry on a product
If we use the same yeast pastry for decoration as for the wedding cake, we should not attach it to the base before baking. In the oven, all the details will blur and become barely noticeable. How to decorate the loaf with later made blanks? Fifteen to twenty minutes before the loaf is ready, we take it out of the oven. You need to work very quickly. After all, undercooling of an unbaked product can lead to the fact that the dough falls. Grease the top with sugar syrup or shaken egg white. We attach jewelry to this culinary “glue”. We put in the oven and bake until fully cooked.