Vrkoč is a very special Czech pastry prepared on St. Catherine’s Day.
Vrkoč used to be prepared by the girls attending the dances on St. Catherine’s Day to give to their dance partners. You can read more about this day in St. Catherine (Sv. Kateřina) – Czech traditions on this day. Nowadays, it’s made more for fun and decoration, sometimes also at Christmas.
The base of this pastry is simple raised dough like you would prepare for Koláče or Buchty. This dough is shaped in a circle for the base – one is enough but you can make more and build the pastry construction taller. The base is usually twisted. The rest depends on everyone’s imagination – a construction from wooden sticks with dried fruits is built upon the base and there’s usually an apple at the top.
How to make Vrkoč
Ingredients and supplies
For the dough:
- 400 g/14.1 oz of all-purpose flour or hladká mouka – see the Czech Flour Guide
- 1 egg
- 40 g/1.4 oz of fresh yeast or 1 heaping tsp of dried yeast
- 200 ml/6.8 oz of warm milk
- 70 g/2.5 oz of sugar
- 60 g/2.1 oz of melted butter for dough and a little for glazing
- pinch of salt
For decoration
- dried fruit
- nuts
- small cookies and other sweets
- apple
Other
- wooden sticks
Vrkoč – recipe
Pour warm milk in a bowl, break the yeast into pieces and add it to the milk. Add 1 tsp of sugar and 1 tsp of flour and stir a little. Let it rest in a warm place (cover the bowl) for 15 minutes or until it forms bubbles on top.
Meanwhile, sift the flour into a large bowl. Add a pinch of salt and all the sugar, mix a little. Add the starter that you’ve prepared with the yeast, 1 egg and butter. Knead well until the dough is smooth and lightly sticky. If you need to add flour because it’s too sticky, add it little by little. Form a ball and let the dough rest in a covered bowl until it rises and at least doubles its volume. Knead again and let it rise once more.
If you want to make just one piece, you don’t need to divide the dough, if you want to make a vrkoč like mine, divide the dough into two pieces, one third the smaller one and two thirds the larger one.
Divide the larger piece into two equal parts and roll them out.
Connect the ends and twist them around each other.
Form a circle and connect the ends.
Repeat these steps for the smaller part. Now you should have two circles – one smaller and one larger.
Preheat the oven to 170°C/338°F and let the dough rest while the oven preheats. Glaze the dough with melted butter and bake for 30 minutes.
Take them out of the oven and immediately glaze with more butter. Let both pieces cool down.
Put same amount of dried fruits on 4 sticks and stick them into the larger vrkoč – the base.
Decorate the apple with more fruit and sweets on sticks and then use more sticks to connect the apple with the smaller pastry.
Place the smaller piece with apple on the base, try to make the sticks in the base go a little inside the bottom of the smaller piece. And your vrkoč is done!
