Romanian Women - Recipes For Romanian Christmas Food And Its Delight

Before Christmas, there is a forty days period, during which Romanians are fasting. According to the orthodox religion, people are not allowed to eat any products, which come from animals. So no eggs, no meat, nothing of animal origin is allowed on the table.

This fasting period has exceptions, because from time to time, on certain Sundays, which are exactly determined by the calendar and the religion, Romanians can eat fish. Romanian Christmas food means that the fasting period is over. The cooking of the meat begins then, as well as the process of preserving it.

Women set aside the meat for the stuffed cabbage, the meat for the steak and the grease they will use to bake the pound cakes. There are many recipes for Romanian Christmas food, and the pound cakes are pretty interesting to bake. In some parts of Romania, prepared breads are round, because they are supposed to be like the sun and the moon. However, Romanian traditional food is similar to other European foods.

For baking Romanian traditional pound cakes you need the following ingredients: 600 g of flour, 40 g of beer yeast, 200 ml of milk, 4 eggs, 50 ml oil, 60 g butter, lemon peel, rum essence, raisins, nuts core, vanilla, sugar, salt. The yolk of an egg must be mixed with the salt and the must be kept in a warm environment.

The raisins must be cleaned, washed and let to dry. The nuts core is cleaned and crushed. Then, you must mix the beer yeast with 10 g of sugar until you get a fluid composition. After this, you must dissolve 75 ml of milk and gradually add 100 g of flour. Over this completely obtained composition, you spread flour and you let it grow at a temperature of about 35 - 40 C, until the volume is twice or three times multiplied.

In the heated milk, pour the flour by continuously stirring it. The composition resulted is left to cool down to 30 - 40 C. separately the sugar is dissolved in 250 ml of milk and the yolks are added, the lemon peel and the rum essence and vanilla.

You then mix it with the previous composition which must have grown by now and stir them. At the same time, add the rest of the flour and the butter and oil, which must be preheated at 35 - 40 C, raisins and nut core and knead until air bubbles appear and the dough does not stick to the bowl anymore.

Next step is to spread egg yolk on them after laying them in the tray and put them in the oven to bake. At first, the temperature must be low for a few minutes, then higher so that the pound cake will grow evenly. You must keep them in the oven for about 40-50 minutes. After you take the tray out of the oven, let it cool down a bit before laying them on the table and covering them with a white tissue until they are cold enough to eat.