Decorating a celebratory cake requires special skills, but a good dough recipe is the basis. Ljilja Danilović from Kraljevo inherited her mother’s skill and great love for making and decorating the slavic cake.
Already more than a thousand years in our nation it is customary to celebrates the saint as a patron our lineages and families as well as the baptism day of our ancestors. For the celebration of the baptismal glory, the prayer mediator before God, a slavish cake is prepared, the basic symbol of glory and a sign of Christ’s body. With this beautiful custom our nation is distinguished among all Orthodox nations and that is why it is said: “Where there is glory and the glory cake, there is also a Serb” and “Whoever celebrates glory, helps it”.
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Many saints are celebrated in our nation, and most Serbian homes celebrate Saint Nicholas, Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint John, Saint George the Great Martyr, Saint Demetrius, Saint Petka…
Our ancestors remembered that holy day when they were baptized, i they handed over to descendants that every year they celebrate that saint who was a witness before God that our ancestors sincerely received the holy cross, baptismal glory, through that and the saint.
The celebration cake is a symbol of baptismal glory
In its essence and message the glory of baptism is represented by the glory cake, because bread is what is most necessary for human life, it is a sign of Christ’s body and ours, and wine is a sign of Christ’s and our blood, and this is what conditions and makes man a living being. That’s why Ljilja Danilović from Kraljevo, like many Serbian housewives, perceives the mixing of cakes as one of the most joyful and beautiful moments in her household and family celebrating Saint Michael the Archangel.
,,Stake is bread made of wheat flour mixed with yeast and for its mixing, water is used – water that the priest for a few days before the celebration in our home the grace of the Holy Spirit avenges. “I inherited skill and great love in mixing the Slavonic cake, as well as sincere devotion to religion, prayer and holiness from my mother Ksenija Rakić, for which I am grateful,” says Ljilja Danilović.
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Decorations for the celebration cake
Decorating the celebratory cake requires special skill, experience and patience of the hostess, which Ljilja does not lack. Decorations can be different, but some have become established and are almost indispensable on the celebratory cake.
According to our interlocutor, for decorating the celebration cake it is necessary to knead a hard but elastic dough of the following ingredients:
- 110 grams of flour,
- two teaspoons of salt,
- two teaspoons of stock,
- about 0.1-0.2 deciliters of water and
- kitchen transparent film.
,,In the middle of the cakeas well as in four places on the rim, I put stamp with the letters IS HS NI KA (in Cyrillic), which is the Greek abbreviation of “Jesus Christ wins”. I always use it fugures-decorations: Cross, Ears of grain symbolizing the birth year; Grapes/barence-berry year; Bird – health, joy and peace in the house; Book-knowledge, success in school or at work; Flowers – beauty, purity of soul and body,” says the hard-working Kraljevo housewife.
On the day of celebration, the priest cuts the cake in the church or in the priest’s house. After a troparion or song in honor of the saint, the priest reads a prayer invoking the grace of the Holy Spirit for the health and prosperity of the host and his family.
Patriarch Pavle: „Žit is mandatory for St. Archangel Michael”
Grain is also prepared for the celebration, which is boiled in fresh water and placed with the cake for blessing. A grain of wheat is a symbol of eternal life and resurrection: a grain thrown on the ground germinates and decays, but an ear grows from it, bearing many more grains. It is unjustified and incorrect that believers who celebrate St. Archangel’s Day should not prepare grain.
According to Patriarch Pavle, “grain is mandatory for St. Archangel Michael”. It is necessary to prepare the grain for glory, because all the saints and all the dead are alive before God.
Source: www.agromedia.rs
