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A friend just e-mailed me this article. Has anyone here ever tried to make Paska using a breadmachine? Was it any good????

I. X. C.

Ask and you shall receive...

Pascha (Easter) bread with a bread machine

As Europe�s largest all inclusive country the foods for Pascha (Easter) in Ukraine vary by region and even family. Pascha is the holiest of days being the first of the new Sabbaths, so no work is acceptable. The only food staple across the land is not a food but that all foods are prepared ahead and served cold on the �Great Day�. The closest to an indispensable food item from the central European mountains crossing into Ukraine through the steppes and from the marshes down to the Black Sea is a dairy enriched bread, called the same as the feast itself �pascha / Pascha�. Although the ingredients may vary the indispensable part of the recipe is the fact that it can only be called pascha if shaped into a round loaf. If the pascha bread is taken to the church for the Paschal blessing it is likewise topped with a dough cross decoration. The decrease of the temperature while baking reflects the old hearth oven method of baking as the oven cooled. The optional dusting of the pans is a reminder of the burial preparations for Jesus as the raised bread itself symbolizes the risen Christ. Here is a 21st. c rendition of this ancestral Paschal staple.

2 lb loaf bread machine
2 or 3 round enameled pans or sauce pans 8 to 10 � radius.
1 1/3 c milk
6 T butter
3 eggs
1/3 c sugar
1 3/4 t salt
5 1/2 c flour
2 t granulated dry yeast

Cut butter into pats, with milk microwave for 1 1/2 minutes
Lightly beat the eggs

In the 2 lb bread machine cylinder slowly spoon warmed butter and milk into beaten eggs so not to cook eggs.
Add sugar and salt. It is important to top mixture with the flour and finally sprinkling with the dried yeast on the very top.

Set machine for �dough� cycle. Let machine mix and rise. If machine has an �add� indicator, and you wish to embellish with a cup of white raisins do it when buzzer indicates.

When raising cycle is complete, take dough out of cylinder. On a floured board divide into three equal portions.

Spray pans with Pam, option: dust base with a mixture of ground spices as clove and or cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, black caraway.

Take section into hands and roll sides down and around up into bottom, rotating until a smooth dome forms on top. Place dome side up into pan, with fist push down center of dome to release air bubbles.

If being prepared for the Pascal blessing fill only 2 pans, taking third segment and cut into quarters. On flowered board roll each quarter into a rope the length of the pan�s radius and heights. Equally cris cross 2 ropes over center of loaf. With scissors split each rope end up to 1� pass rim of pan. Spiral outward and up into a rosette, away from rope and rim making 8 rosettes. Repeat last two ropes on last loaf.

Cover pans with tea towel in a warm place until close to doubled in bulk. Preheat oven to 400o.

Take a sheet of aluminum foil 6� longer then pan�s circumference, try fold lengthwise dull side out.
Beat an egg yoke with a teaspoon of water.

When loaves have risen pierce straight down with a greased squire in 5 to 9 places to retard air pockets forming under crust splitting the top crust. Brush top with egg yoke for a shine.
Wrap foil collar around the rim of the pan forming a stove pipe rising from the outside of the rim to prevent scorching. Space in oven on rack so there is even air circulation. Bake for 10 minuted.

Turn oven down to 350o for 20 minutes.

Open oven and pull rack forward, take off foil collars and rebrush with egg. Continue baking for another 15 minutes.

Retrieve from oven, shake up and down until loaf is released. Remove from pan, pat bottom, if sounds hollow place right side up on rack to cool. If not place back in oven for 5 to 10 minutes without pan to finish.

Cool, bag in plastic and refrigerate. Cut into half, place cut side down and cut into slices. If bread becomes dry toast and serve buttered.

History: brought from Vysova (Wysowa) Lemkivchyna turn XXc. by Olena nee Badarak (Dzula) Jula, passed onto her daughter Dorothy (Theodosia) Jula. Recipe measured and recorded by neighbor Karen Campbell Williams (Shaffer) ca. 1966. Recipe nearly mirrored the Traditional Easter Paska on page 332 in Savella Stechishin�s TRADITIONAL UKRAINIAN COOKERY 1957. Modified and transposed for bread machine by niece in law Marijka nee Borszcz Jula.

PS to Pascha:

(using a bread machine)
in your bread machine insert, layer in this order
medium 1 1/2 lb.or large 2 lb.

milk 1 cup or 1 1/3 cups
butter 4 tablespoons or 8 tablespoons
eggs 2 or 3
sugar 6 tablespoons or 1/3 cup
salt 1 1/2 teaspoons or 1 3/4 teaspoons
white bread flour 4 cups or 6 cups
dry yeast 1 1/2 teaspoons or 2 teaspoons

set for dough only, NOT TO BE BAKED IN THE BREAD MACHINE

X. B.

WHAT NEXT, CHEESE PASCHA?

A nit-picking comment (with apologies);

Pascha, spelled like that, either means the feast day itself, or the delectable cheese concoction of the same name (sometimes called "cheese Pascha") which cannot be made in a bread machine.

Paska, spelled like that, always means the bread for this feast, very popular with Ukrainians.

Just for the sake of completeness, there is also Kulich - which I strongly suspect is a Gallicanized version of Paska created by some French patissier when working in pre-revolutionary Russia. It's delicious, but quite difficult to make.

Fr. Serge

C. I. X.

Serge,

With all due respect this is a tempest in a teapot, but as you brought it up my perspective is which English dictionary are we using? As far as I know even the name for the feast has yet to be included into any desk model much less a pocket size dictionary.

There is always these dilemmas with the �King�s� English, which has no dialects (officially) only accents. We are dueling with a bastard language, not an exact medium like classical Greek, Latin or Slavonic. Dead languages do have their advantages. When a foreign language word comes from a �Latin� alphabet you do not change the spelling even if it changes the pronunciation. When coming from a foreign alphabet English uses their Latin alphabet phonetically. Unfortunately these sounds you cannot guarantee the outcome. Have you ever listen to the different pronunciations for �Theotokos� including �the oto kos�? The best argument for using �God-bearer� I know.

Language is not one of my talents so please correct me if I am wrong. So Passover or "Pesach" coming from the Hebrew/Aramaic "Pesach" to the Latin is �Pascha� or in Greek "Paskha", but English gets it from the old French �Pasche� through the Anglo Saxon �Pasch� pronounced �pask� with a short vowel and our (Orthodox) accepted usage is "Pascha". �Paskha� coming from the Greek or Cyrillic alphabet may be used like ekon or ikon for icon, but the again �Orthodox� have not embraced these usage.

Which witch is which? We have the same problem with Ukraine�s name, although we spell it Rus� there has been variations from Chaucer�s CANTERBURY TALES, The first and second wave to the US translating it as Russian. You think the German linguists of Tsar Peter I didn�t have this in mind? The Russian name for Russia means �of Rus�� or belonging to Rus� yet in English many believe Rus� means Russia. Translating can give false impressions. A ritual cloth or runner �rushnyk� from the Ukrainian can be translated as tower, but only if used for bathing a corpse. Our problem is the root being the same; as Kyiv verses Kiev. My use of �Pascha/pascha� or your use of �Paska/paska� is more taste than law. Please use it consistently, it is the same for the feast as for the bread as for the cheese. When translating sometimes more than one word is needed, but not: �On the feast of Pasch a pascha bread with a smear of paska cheese spread is eaten�. By the way the Soviet name for Easter bread is �koleech�.

C. I. X.

Father,

Is this what the Soviets call"Kulich?

BABKA (souffl� style bread)
modified Ukrainian recipe for bread machine

1 1/3 c milk
11 T. butter

Microwave milk and butter for 2 minutes.

Put the following six ingredients in the bread machine.

4 egg yolks
2 whole eggs

1 c sugar

1/3 t. salt

zest 2/3 lemon

2 t. vanilla

Add the milk and butter

Add

6 c. flour

Put yeast on top of flour

3 � t. dry yeast

Set bread machine on dough cycle (2 hours)

Spray 1 lb. coffee cans with cooking spray and dust with plain bread crumbs.

Fill cans with dough to half full and let rise in warm place until dough
rises to the top of the can.

Brush top gently with egg yolk beaten with 2 T. water.

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes, lower temperature to 325 and bake 20 min.,
Lower temp again to 275 for 15 min.

When done jerk can up and down until bread moves, slide out putting on a rack to cool. Simple powered sugar icing can be poured over the top dome drizzle down the sides.

Makes a good candle (taper) holder for your basket or table.

Cut horizontally in circle slices.

I was going to make bread today; I don't have a bread machine. How does Paska taste?

The yokes go with the dough and the whites coat the risen dough to give it a golden color, or is this reversed? I saw two recipes here and they seemed to inverse.

Terry

C. I. X.

Terry,

The Jewish "chala" sp? egg breads of the local uses a similar recipe as pascha bread. Yokes are yokes, whites are no yokes, eggs are everything. Eggs and yokes give the dough a yellow enriched color, egg brushed on top before baking gives a shiny glaze, whites are for angle food cake. I am guessing your recipe uses the whites on the crust to use the leftovers from the yokes.

"I am guessing your recipe uses the whites on the crust to use the leftovers from the yokes"

That is what I saw. I'm new to bread making and I wouldn't want to ruin a batch by misunderstanding a recipe. =)

Are there different types of flour mixes traditionally used?

Terry

C. I. X.

Pillsbury, Robin Hood, Gold Medal it's all OK. Any all purpose flour.

Dear Michael,

It's not a tempest in a teapot, it's more a hurricane in a bread machine! However:

Surprise! You will find "Pascha" in some English dictionaries (as a name for the feast).

Your mention of the King's English refers, I trust, to His Majesty the King of Bavaria, France, Ireland, Scotland, and England, God give him grace.

Pronunciation is important - and so is grammar, which tells us that the verb must match the subject. Hence we say and write, not "there has been variations" but rather "there have been variations"!

For better or worse, I am unacquainted with the linguists of Peter I, so I refrain from comment on what they may have had in mind.

You write: "A ritual cloth or runner �rushnyk� from the Ukrainian can be translated as tower, but only if used for bathing a corpse." Just how - and why - would anyone use a tower to bathe a corpse? Is the corpse perhaps standing for this purpose?

Ask any priest who speaks Ukrainian: Pascha (or Paskha) is the feast day; Paska is the bread. One priest (now an Archpriest) of my long-standing acquaintance is still recovering from a dim bulb of a teen-ager who had the nerve to say to him: "Father, you don't even know how to spell Paska right!".

The accent of "kulich" is indeed on the second syllable. As to the spelling, I could give you numerous examples of the spelling I just used - but I will concede the point that the word has, as yet, no standard English spelling.

Challah is indeed delicious. So is babka - but an authentic kulich is made with loads of egg yolks, which is why the dough is so delicate, must be baked with great care and then cooled on pillows. It's been a good 25 years since I last made some.

Fr. Serge

C. I. X.

Father,

Like I said I am not language professional. Nor am I a chef, but the more yokes you put into a bread the faster it will dry out.

Now ritual washing a corpse, standard operating procedure. Is this not done when vesting a deceased clergymen? I am sorry but I will defer to a priest for liturgics not language.

I am typing a simple cheese pascha recipe from Lviv you may wish to review. Have a nice Pascha Sunday and or next month.

C. I. X.

SAINT YURY'S (Lviv) CHEESE PASCHA
Traditional Easter breakfast favorite that migrated westward across Ukraine. Customarily molded into a pyramid shape often presented as a centerpiece surrounded by red or blood stained (onion skin) hard boiled eggs. Like a church bell free the celentrical babka bread sits next to it holding a lighted taper candle. Symbolically the cheese represents the soul, the bread the body and red eggs the blood of Christ.

Combine:
1 egg
4 yokes
� cup honey
1 cup sugar
1 cup spur cream
� pound butter
2 pounds farmer�s cheese, (OR dry cottage cheese riced, OR ricotta cheese riced)

Blend at room temperature in mixer until smooth. Heat in saucepan constantly stirring until first bubble appears (do not allow to boil). Remove from heat.

Wisk in:
1 (.32 oz.) package of vanilla sugar, (OR 1 teaspoon vanilla).
1 cup finely chopped blanched almonds, (OR walnuts, OR pistachios). You may wish to roast nuts to enhance their flavor.
1 teaspoon zest of lemon, (OR orange, OR lime).

Wooden pyramid mold with draining holes, (OR flower pot with drain, OR cheese cloth bag).
Cheesecloth
Pam spray

Line mold with dampened cheesecloth, if using a plastic mold, pot or metal sieve spray cheesecloth with Pam.

Ladle ingredients into mold so cheesecloth does not bubble away from sides of mold. Reserve 1 cup of mixture for later. Place on bowl or deep plate to catch drainage and refrigerate at least 4 hours. After it cools, approximately an hour there will be a concaved well formed on top. Pour remaining cup of mixture into well/hole, empty drippings from bowl receptacle replace all to refrigerator.

If using a cheese cloth bag pour into one end, twisting excess cloth and hang from over counter cupboard to drain. When solidified refrigerate.

Turn mold or pot upside-down on serving plate, set aside until cheese drops. OR remove from bag by skinning bag inside out. To store soak cheesecloth in milk and cover pascha to retard drying and hardening. Keep refrigerated. If you wish to transport for the Pascal food blessing and it will not be timely you may wish to pack frozen.

Serve by ladling onto a slice of babka bread, pascha bread or pound cake. Spread to eat and enjoy.

Tsoureki uses a red egg too. Are red eggs made, or bought?

I've only seen red eggs at Asian grocery stores, but those were duck eggs.

C. I. X.

Terry

Red egg shells, organically done by cooking in water mixed with the dry skins of onions. The more skins used the darker "russet brown" the eggs become. They are to represent the egg bribe left at the foot of the cross by Mary Magdalene.