Caravai for the wedding

From time immemorial, the wedding was considered a joyful unforgettable holiday, uniting two lovers, the so-called birthday of a new family, so everyone wanted that this day everything was just perfect.

Among the bakery decorating the festive table, bread was always in price, as it played an important role in family rites and was a symbol of fertility and prosperity. That's why they always baked a loaf for a wedding, the absence of which meant carrying out an inferior rite. They were called young for a prosperous long life.

It was made from the highest grades of flour, on which dough was mixed with the addition of butter and eggs. On top of the baking decorated with cones, dots or pigeons, spikelets and flowers, which were made from the same test. And in some regions of Ukraine the wedding loaf was decorated with branches of fruit-bearing trees, bandaged with red ribbons, various greens, spikelets of wheat, flowers of viburnum, berries. All this was done for several reasons. First, most of the events were held in the fall period, at the time of the harvest, and secondly, viburnum and wheat symbolize strong love and well-being. Sometimes a symbol of prosperity was tied with a towel.

Since the loaf, prepared for the wedding, symbolized the status of a young couple, they tried to make it big, sometimes reaching the size of a wedding table. They were greeted by the bride and groom, offering them to taste this fragrant sweet bread from the middle, which meant the birth of a new life. It was also believed that anyone who tried this pastry would be lucky in everything.

It should be said that this tradition has taken root in the Slavic culture. Every time we meet young caravans with various patterns and ornaments, which blesses for a long family life.

Let's see how the loaf is made for the wedding.

So, for this you need the following ingredients: eight glasses of flour, twenty grams of dry yeast, one hundred grams of butter (vegetable or cream melted), half a glass of milk, ten eggs, seven spoonfuls of sugar, two tablespoons of salt, one lemon peel, cinnamon to taste.

Yeast along with a spoonful of sugar is bred in milk, yolks are added with sugar and mix well.

In a large container pour a hill flour and make a groove in the middle, where the resulting yeast is poured into, mix the dough.

Half a cup of flour is poured onto the table, put the resulting dough and mix it well until it becomes smooth (in time it will take about twenty minutes). Thus, it should be two kilograms.

Before baking the loaf for the wedding, you need to separate six hundred grams from the total mass of the dough, make a ball from the rest of the ball and lay it on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. This ball is greased with water, and from the remaining mass mold various decorations, for example, leaves, flowers, spikelets, etc., which are placed on the caravan. The surface of the whole product is greased with yolk and baked in the oven at a high temperature at the lower level for about an hour and a half.

After that, the oven should be turned off, open the door and allow the baking to cool. After that, it is taken out, covered with napkins and allowed to stand for one night.

Thus, the loaf at the wedding is that indispensable attribute that prophesies a long and happy life.