Jabkance is a sweet dish from the town Česká Třebová on prepared on St. Catherine’s Day. Its name might deceive you as it’s not what it seems!
Jabkance is not a widely popular dish and its origin can be easily traced to Česká Třebová where its preparation is still very common and traditionally prepared on St. Catherine’s Day. Their tradition probably started out of necessity to feed the pilgrims visiting St. Catherine’s Rotunda every November. To me, jabkance is an acquired taste. Even if you’re used to potato dough, this tastes different, the potato dough is really prominent and to many it might be very unusual combined with the sweet quark taste. However, it’s a traditional dish that everyone should taste at least once!
If you’d like to try another traditional recipe for St. Catherine’s Day, here’s how to make Vrkoč.
Table of Contents
What is Jabkance
If you understand Czech, you probably thought of the word jabko (colloquial for jablko – apple). However, this dish has nothing to do with apples. The name derives from the local name for potatoes – zemská jablka (“earth apples”). It’s a sweet dish made from potato dough and filled with tvaroh – soft quark cheese often used in Czech cuisine, especially in sweet recipes.
Czech cuisine knows a large variety of desserts made with potato dough, e.g. Povidlové taštičky, Šišky s mákem or Patenty but Jabkance is a little different. The dough is made really just with potatoes and a little salt, nothing more. The trick is to grate or grind the potatoes finely and then pound them until they become this sticky dough that you can work with.
Why “earth apples”?
The Czech language has been influenced by the German language. Although a dictionary will tell you that the word for potatoes is Kartoffel, some regions of the German speaking countries use the word Erdäpfel (literally “earth apples”). Some Bohemian and Moravian regions adopted this expression adjusting it to the Czech language as erteple or translating it to zemská jablka, zemní jablka or zemáky.
Jabkance Pilgrimage
Česká Třebová, the town or its origin organizes a pilgrimage dedicated to the dish every year in November. The Association of St. Catherine prepares and sells jabkance made from 10 tons of potatoes in front of the cottage U kostelíčka next to St. Catherine’s Rotunda. The potatoes are boiled at midnight and at 4 am the less then 40 members of the association get to the peeling and grinding.
The sale starts in the morning and there’s cultural program in the afternoon organized by the so-called jabkancoví umělci (jabkance artists). Hundreds of people queue since 5 am to get a taste of this local delicacy and experience the most significant cultural event of the town.
Recipe
Ingredients
Dough
- 750 g of potatoes
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- a little flour for the table
Filling
- 250 g of tvaroh cheese
- 1 egg yolk
- 3 tbsp of powder sugar
- optional: handful of raisins
Topping
- melted butter
- powder sugar
How to make Jabkance
Boil the potatoes in peel for one hour, this should be enough to cook them. Let them cool down just a little bit and meanwhile, prepare the filling because once you have the dough, it’s better to work fast. Mix all the ingredients for the filling well.
Peel the potatoes as soon as you can hold them in your hand. If you have a fine grinder, pass the potatoes through it twice, if you don’t grate them finely and knead with your hand.
Place this dough on a table and beat it with a wooden rolling pin until the dough becomes sticky. I usually take the handles of the pin in both hands and beat it more evenly.
Sprinkle a little dough onto your working table. Take a handful of dough, form a ball and roll it out flat.
Fill with the quark cheese mixture.
Seal and set aside.
Heat up a pan, don’t add any grease! Fry jabkance on one side, flip and fry on the other.
Sprinkle with sugar and pour some melted butter over them and serve while hot.
