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

Karavai in the Slavic culture was central to the wedding and even the funeral traditions. Like the Easter cake, it is a ritual bread. Now the caravans are mostly used to meet the official important guest. And ordinary people bake them solely for a wedding. What distinguishes a loaf from another batch of sweet dough? Because it is a ritual bread, it is served with salt. The bride and groom who were greeted with a loaf of bread had to be nibbled on a piece, then dipped the bread in a saltcellar and ate. This symbolized the promise to "taste together a pood of salt". All the guests of the wedding ate the young loaf. Another distinguishing feature of ritual bread from simply delicious baking is the abundance of jewelry. 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, on the further joint life of the young couple. Therefore, the topic of our article will not be baking, but the decoration of the caravans. We will introduce the master class of decorating wedding bread below.

Karavai in the pagan culture of the Slavs

This bread was baked by our ancestors even before Christianity came to Russia. The caravai must have a round shape, in honor of the Sun God Yaril. It was very important for the dough to rise. The higher the loaf, the greater the prosperity of the young. By sympathetic magic, the woman who kneaded the dough, baked and decorated ritual bread, gave a piece of her fate to the bride. Therefore, only special "caravan" was allowed to work. They should have been married, happy in marriage and have children. And the widows were allowed to bake only the so-called commemoration caravans. Such ritual bread was shared among themselves by relatives and relatives of the deceased. Now the wedding loaf can be ordered at the café-confectionery. But if you put a piece of your soul into bread, then this can affect the fate of the young. Previously, the mixing process of dough and baking was accompanied by ritual songs and prayers. Perhaps today you can do without it. But the decoration of the product remains an important stage. Therefore, you need to know how to decorate the loaf with your own hands.

Symbolic meaning of the details of the decor

Do not forget that this bread is ritual. Therefore, its decor needs to be approached differently than to decorating the cake. It is not a fantasy that is important, but knowledge of the symbolic meaning of certain elements. First of all, do not forget to leave a place for the 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, it is a pigtail (a symbol of long relations), wheat spikelets (fertility, which is identified with a large number of children in a wedding dress), flowers and leaves (well-being and prosperity), pigeons and horses, stars (happiness, fidelity). In Ukraine, a constant attribute on such ritual bread are bunches of viburnum. It is not only a national symbol, but also a sign of love and matrimonial fidelity. Of course, you can show a more modern look at the decoration of the caravan and decorate its surface with wedding rings, swans, figures of the bride and groom. You can remain faithful to pagan traditions and bring to the caravan stylized phallic symbols. But it's better to stick to the "golden mean".

What to make jewelry from

Mastic - a fertile material for decoration. Elastic, like plasticine, it is good for modeling all sorts of figures or complex fragments. In addition, it can be tinted. Mastic and marshmallow will turn the product into a super-fine wedding loaf. Photos of such culinary masterpieces look impressive. You can create multi-tier wedding cakes, because mastic (with proper storage) is very durable material. But if you want to know how to decorate a loaf according to the Slavic traditions, you need to learn how to work with the test. Because our ancestors did not know what mastic is. All the details of the decor they made from the dough. But it is important to know not only how to create decor elements, but also from what to mold them and when to cling to the surface of a loaf.

Dough for decorating loaf

It is possible to postpone some amount of that material from which we will bake our wedding cake. Proceeding from the fact that the loaf must necessarily be large (each participant in the celebration is supposed to have at least a small piece), the decorating of the product will require at least six hundred grams of dough. But here we should make a reservation. If we decorate our loaf before sending it to the oven, the pastry dough will fade and mix with the base in the baking process. Because of this, the details of the decor will be barely discernible. Therefore, for decoration use fresh, like dumplings and vareniki, or short pastry. In this case, the details of the decor will be more prominent, convex and retain a clear outline. Modern technologies allow us to paint decorations in different colors. But our ancestors used for this purpose burnt sugar, egg white, buckwheat and rye flour.

Ornaments from dough

To the details of the decor not blurred, and remained embossed, they should be attached to the surface of the pie not immediately, but for fifteen to twenty minutes before the willingness to loaf. An exception may be pigtails from the dough. Because this is a pretty big decoration, he needs more time to bake. In addition, the pigtail, like a hoop a barrel, holds the surface of the wedding cake, preventing spreading of the dough. This detail of the decor is 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 plait the braid. We lay it on the perimeter of the top of the product. We put the tip of the braid under the bottom. After all, this braid should symbolize the infinity of conjugal happiness. You can weave another small and thin pigtail, decorating it with a place for a saltcellar.

Roses

Flowers on the wedding caravan symbolize family happiness and motherhood. Particularly festive look at the pie rose. How beautiful to decorate the loaf of this "flower queen"? We cut out four mugs from an unleavened dough . Let's fold them on each other and roll up the roll. We break it into two halves, squeezing it in the middle with your fingers. There will be two little roses. To make a big flower, we'll resort to another method. Take one round of dough and twist it in the center, stretching the edges nicely. On top of it we put one more such piece, and then again and again, until a lush and beautiful rose comes out. We attach the leaves to the flowers. To do this, roll out the dough with a thin layer and cut out the diamonds. Then with a knife we make cuts on them to give them a resemblance to the leaves of the rose. We will draw a stylus on the test with a needle.

Details of a vegetative ornament

Everyone knows approximately what a wedding loaf should look like. Photos represent it as round and tall bread, the top of which is adorned with flowers, ears, clusters of viburnum, oak leaves. Stems - this is the easiest in the preparation of plant ornament. The elastic dumpling dough can be rolled into very thin flagella. Even a child can make berries of a viburnum. It is necessary to roll small balls of dough. In the color version of the loaf, you can tint it with powdered paprika. These balls should be cut in half and put in a semicircle in clusters. Create a spikelet (a symbol of fertility) will be somewhat more difficult. Roll the dough into small sausages (two to three centimeters long). Manicure scissors make cuts on the sides to give similarity to the ears of wheat.

Birds-swans

Pigeons are a favorite character in decorating ritual pies. But on the Easter cake this bird symbolizes the Holy Spirit, and on the wedding - the world and love. Therefore, there should be two pigeons. It's easy to sculpt these birds. Roll the strip of dough length of three centimeters and a width of 0.5 cm. Tie it around the edges of the nodules. On one of them we cut out the beak with the tip of the knife, and on the second - the tail. Priplyuschim main piece of the test. With the needle, we draw the wings, and with feathers, with manicure scissors. How to decorate a loaf with two swans? They will be made as easily as the pigeons. We roll with fingers of dough two sausages in length in six centimeters. We stretch each of them in such a way that a large oval (the body of a swan) forms on one end, and on the other a small ball (its head). We attach both birds to the karavay. On the ball form the beak and eyes, flagellum (neck) beautifully bend. On the oval we make a tail, draw wings and feathers.

Playing Color

To detail the decor 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 in the very beginning, before you send the product to the oven. But then you should not lubricate them with 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. Paint in this case should serve burnt sugar, cocoa, turmeric, paprika powder, crushed dry tomatoes. Since the details of the decor are also edible, the dyes must be exceptionally edible.

How to "paste" the jewelry on the product

If we use for the decoration the same yeast dough as for the wedding cake, we should not attach it to the base before baking. In the oven, all the details will spread and become barely noticeable. How to decorate the loaf with the billets made later? For fifteen to twenty minutes before the loaf is ready, we take it out of the oven. You need to work very quickly. After the supercooling of the unbaked product can lead to the fact that the dough will fall off. Top grease with sugar syrup or whisked egg whites. At this culinary "glue" we catch ornaments. We put in the oven and bake until completely cooked.