How to decorate a loaf? Decoration of loaves: master class, photo

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Loaf in Slavic culture was central to wedding and even funeral traditions. Like Easter cake, it is a ritual bread. Now loaves are mainly used to meet an official important guest. And ordinary people bake them exclusively for the wedding. What distinguishes the loaf from other sweet pastry pastries? Since this is ritual bread, it is served with s alt. The bride and groom, who were met in a loaf, had to pinch off a piece, then dip the bread in a s alt shaker and eat it. This symbolized the promise to "taste a pood of s alt together." For the young loaf, all the guests of the wedding ate. Another distinguishing feature of ceremonial bread from simply delicious pastries is the abundance of decorations. And not just vintage, like the original cake, but traditional. After all, every detail of the decor carried a special symbolic meaning and influenced, as our ancestors believed, the future life of a young married couple. Therefore, the topic of our article will not be baking, but decorating loaves. We will present a master class for decorating wedding breadbelow.

Loaves in the pagan culture of the Slavs

This bread was baked by our ancestors even before Christianity came to Russia. The loaf must be round, in honor of the sun god Yaril. It was very important that the dough rise. The higher the loaf went, the more we alth awaited the young. By sympathetic magic, the woman who kneaded the dough, baked and decorated ritual bread, passed on a piece of her destiny to the bride. Therefore, only special "loaf women" were allowed to such work. They had to be married, happily married and have children. And widows were allowed to bake only the so-called funeral loaves. Such ritual bread was shared by relatives and friends of the deceased. Now a wedding loaf can be ordered in cafes and confectioneries. But if you put a piece of your soul into bread, then 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 step. Therefore, you need to know how to decorate a 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 is important here is not fantasy, but knowledge of the symbolic meaning of certain elements. First of all, let's not forget to leave room for the s alt shaker. It should be placed strictly in the center of the loaf. Around the s alt shaker should be placedvegetable ornaments. As a rule, this is a pigtail (a symbol of a long-term relationship), wheat spikelets (fertility, which in a wedding loaf is identified with having many children), flowers and leaves (well-being and prosperity), doves and horses, stars (happiness, fidelity). 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 decoration of the loaf and decorate its surface with wedding rings, swans, figurines of the bride and groom. You can stay true to pagan traditions and display stylized phallic symbols on the loaf. But it's better to stick to the "golden mean".

What to make jewelry from

Mastic is a fertile material for decoration. Elastic, like plasticine, it is good for sculpting all sorts of figures or complex fragments. Plus, it can be dyed. 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 (if stored properly) 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 dough. After all, our ancestors did not know what mastic was. They made all the details of the decor from dough. But it is important to know not only how to create decor elements, but also what to sculpt them from and when to cling to the surface of the loaf.

Dough for loaf decoration

We can set aside some of the stuff we bake our wedding cake with. Based on the fact that the loaf must certainly be large (each participant in the celebration is en titled to at least a small piece), at least six hundred grams of dough will be needed to decorate the product. But a caveat must be made here. If we decorate our loaf before sending it to the oven, then the pastry will spread during the baking process and mix with the base. Because of this, the details of the decor will be barely distinguishable. Therefore, for decoration, they use fresh, as for dumplings and dumplings, or shortbread dough. In this case, the details of the decor will be more embossed, convex and retain a clear outline. Modern technologies allow us to paint jewelry in different colors. But our ancestors used burnt sugar, egg white, buckwheat and rye flour for these purposes.

Decoration from pastry

So that the details of the decor do not blur, but remain embossed, they should not be attached to the surface of the cake immediately, but fifteen to twenty minutes before the loaf is ready. An exception may be pigtails from the test. Since this is a rather large decoration, it needs more time to bake. In addition, the pigtail, like a hoop to a barrel, fastens the surface of the wedding cake, preventing the dough from spreading. This piece of decor is very easy to do. 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 we braid. We put it onthe 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 the place for the s alt shaker with it.

Roses

Flowers on the wedding loaf symbolize family happiness and motherhood. Roses look especially festive on a cake. How beautiful to decorate a loaf with this "queen of flowers"? Cut out four circles from unleavened dough. Put them on top of each other and roll them up. We break it into two halves, squeezing the middle with our 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 it in the center, straightening the edges beautifully. On top of it, we put another one of the same piece, and then another and another, until a lush and beautiful rose comes out. Let's add leaves to the flowers. To do this, roll out the dough with a thin layer and cut out rhombuses. Then with a knife we will make cuts on them to give them a resemblance to rose leaves. With a needle, draw veins on the dough.

Details of floral ornament

Everyone knows approximately how a wedding loaf should look like. The photos present it as round and tall bread, the top of which is decorated with flowers, ears of corn, clusters of viburnum, oak leaves. Stems are the easiest plant ornament to make. Elastic dumpling dough can be rolled into very thin flagella. Even a child can make viburnum berries. You need to roll small balls of dough. In the color version of the loaf, you can tint it with paprika powder. Theseballs should be cut in half and semicircles laid in clusters. Creating spikelets (a symbol of fertility) will be somewhat more difficult. Roll out the dough into small sausages (2-3 centimeters long). With nail scissors we make cuts from the sides to give a resemblance to ears of wheat.

Swan birds

Doves are a favorite character for decorating ritual pies. But on the Easter cake, this bird symbolizes the Holy Spirit, and on the wedding cake - peace and love. Therefore, there should be two pigeons. Sculpting these birds is easy. Roll out strips of dough three centimeters long and 0.5 cm wide. Tie knots at the edges. On one of them we cut out the beak with the tip of the knife, and on the second - the tail. Priplyuem the main piece of dough. Draw the wings with a needle, and fluff up the feathers with nail scissors. How to decorate a loaf with two swans? They will be just as easy to make as doves. We roll two sausages six centimeters long from the dough with our fingers. Let's stretch each of them in such a way that a large oval (the swan's body) forms at one end, and a small ball (its head) forms at the other. We fasten both birds to the loaf. We form a beak and eyes on the ball, bend the flagellum (neck) beautifully. On the oval we make a tail, draw wings and feathers.

Playing with colors

To make the details of the decor as different 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 to the oven. But then you shouldn't lubricate them.yolk. In this case, the cake itself will come out ruddy, and its decorations will be white. You can go beyond such a monochrome "grisaille" and make a colored loaf. In this case, burnt sugar, cocoa, turmeric, powdered paprika, crushed dry tomatoes should serve as paints. Since the details of the decor of the loaf are also edible, the dyes must be exclusively food.

How to "stick" decorations on the product

If we use the same yeast dough for decorating 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 a loaf with blanks made later? Fifteen to twenty minutes before the loaf is ready, we take it out of the oven. You have to work very fast. After all, hypothermia of an unbaked product can lead to the fact that the dough will fall off. Brush the top with sugar syrup or beaten egg white. On this culinary "glue" we cling decorations. Put in the oven and bake until fully cooked.