HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS ARE COMING: THESE ARE THE TRICKS FOR A PERFECT SLAVA BREAD

Every year, homemakers strive to make the best slava bread or loaf for their family celebrations. Making the perfect slava bread can be challenging: how to find the right measurements for the dough, how to decorate it, and how to prevent the surface from cracking?

 The tradition dictates that the homemaker must knead the slava bread with holy water, ensuring, according to belief, that the household’s patron saint will always protect the family that celebrates him. However, for many, especially young homemakers, making slava bread is a challenging task, as it either doesn’t rise properly, spreads too much, or most often, spills out of the baking dish.

To avoid these issues, it's important to follow two crucial rules when preparing the slava bread: the dough must be well-kneaded, and the baking dish must be placed in a very hot oven.

Additionally, the dough's texture is critical for the bread’s quality. If it sticks to your fingers, it means you need to add more flour, while a dough that’s too stiff needs to be softened, as the goal is to have a soft, airy dough.

It’s also essential to position the slava bread correctly while it bakes. Always place it in the middle of the oven, as the part closer to the upper heating element will dry out more and significantly increase the chance of the bread cracking.

If you don’t have a tried-and-true recipe for making slava bread, try this traditional one that always works.

Ingredients:

1 kilogram of type 500 flour for the bread and 250 grams of flour for decorations

1 packet of fresh yeast

300 milliliters of water

2 tablespoons of sugar

1 tablespoon of salt

Preparation:

Heat the water to lukewarm, then add the sugar and crumbled yeast, stir, and let it rise.

In a larger bowl or pot, pour the flour, then add the water with yeast and sugar, and knead well. The dough should be moderately firm.

Cover the bowl with a cloth and let the dough rise.

Once the dough has doubled in size, knead it again.

Cover the bowl with the dough again, and let it rise for at least another half hour, then knead it once more.

Preheat the oven to 250°C.

Line the bottom of a pot or round baking dish with parchment paper.

Divide the dough into three parts.

Place the first third of the dough into the pot or deep round baking dish lined with parchment paper. From the remaining two-thirds of the dough, make four smaller balls and place them on top of the first part of the dough. Cover with a cloth again and let the bread rise for another half hour.

The oven must be hot when you put the pot or baking dish with the bread inside.

Immediately after placing the bread in the oven, reduce the temperature to 120°C.

The bread should bake for about an hour.

While the bread bakes, prepare the dough for the decorations. Mix 250 grams of flour, salt, and a little water, knead a stiff dough, roll it out, and use molds to make decorations—crosses, seals, wheat sheaves, braids, etc.

Towards the end of baking, remove the pot with the slava bread from the oven, arrange the decorations, brush them with a little water using a pastry brush, and return the bread to the turned-off oven for another 10 to 15 minutes.