When I started learning French in grade school, one of the first things I enjoyed was finding French recipes and translating them to Croatian. When I got older, I enjoyed making them into food 😀
This is one of my favorite dishes to make with leftover ham form Easter. You can serve as breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner 😄
Ingredients
3 eggs
500 ml milk
150 g ham
6 tbsp all purpose flour
8 tbsp grated cheese (cheddar, Gouda or something similar)
2 tbsp unsalted butter
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 200 °C (395 °F).
Grease the baking pan with a little butter.
Cut the ham into little squares and place it on the bottom of the pan.
In a big bowl mix butter, grated cheese, milk, flour, salt and pepper.
Add whole eggs and mix well with spatula until the mixture gets smooth.
Pour the mixture on the ham.
Bake for about 35 minutes until golden brown.
Serve with fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados or red peppers!
Easter passed, you enjoyed coloring the eggs and now you have extra you don’t know what to do with? Fear not, this beauty is not far out of reach 😄
Filling for these eggs is very simple, but flavorful. The trick is in that horseradish. Don’t miss the opportunity to try it. Traditionally, we always have fresh grated horseradish for Easter breakfast, so I like to use it in other Easter dishes. Deviled eggs are perfect way to incorporate it and have no food waste.
You can add other ingredients if you wish. I suggest tuna, capers or olives, anchovies, ham, cheese… the options are endless.
Ingredients
10 eggs
50 g mayonnaise
100 g sour cream
1 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp grated horseradish
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
radishes for decoration
Preparation
Hard boil the eggs. Peel them and cut them in half, lengthwise. Tip: put 1 tbsp of vinegar in the water in which you boil the eggs for easier peeling 😉
Take the egg yolks out carefully and place them in a bowl where you will prepare the filling.
Mash the egg yolks with a fork or through a strainer for more smoothness.
Add all the other ingredients and season to taste.
Fill the egg whites with small spoon and decorate as you like.
I was trying to get the boat look with the radish being the sail! How do you like it? 😃
Tip: Put the filling in a zip bag, cut the edge and make swirls for a fancier look!
Also known as œufs à la neige or île flottante! The difference between the two dishes is that île flottante sometimes contains islands made of “alternate layers of alcohol-soaked dessert biscuits and jam”. Wink, wink 😉
A few years back I made them live on Google+ Hangouts on AZ Entertainment live cooking show and was so much fun. You can check it out below.
It is also traditionally made in Croatia where we called them Šnenokle in Northwestern region and Paradižot in Dalmatia. The difference being Paradižot has alcohol-soaked dessert biscuits, sometimes with chocolate sprinkles, and Šnenokle won’t get you drunk (except on love maybe) 😁
Ingredients
6 eggs
1 liter (4 cups) of milk
100 g (1/2 cup) sugar
½ vanilla bean
2 tbsp cornstarch
Preparation
Cook vanilla bean in milk in a large pot until boiling hot.
Separate egg whites and yolks.
Beat the egg whites with electric or stand up mixer until stiff.
Place the egg whites with large spoon in the boiling milk. Don’t put too many at once as they will double the size. Turn them over in 30 sec. They shouldn’t boil more than a minute.
Take them out and place them in a serving bowl.
Remove the vanilla bean from the milk.
Mix egg yolks and sugar until foamy, add cornstarch and a bit of the boiling milk. Mix until combined.
Stir in the egg yolk mixture in the boiling milk after you cooked all the egg whites. Whisk until the creme thickens.
Pour the cream over the egg whites.
Chill before serving.
Serve well chilled and decorated with grated chocolate. You can also place the cooked egg whites on sugar cookies soaked in rum.
This cake… could not be simpler 🙂 I usually make it when I make Croatian jam cookies as I have leftover egg whites.
You can use many ingredients to elevate this simple cake. Chopped hazelnuts, almonds or peanuts, dried figs, apricots or dates all go great with this dough. You can combine whatever you like, even fresh fruit can be great.
Ingredients
6 egg whites
200 g (1 1/2 cup) icing sugar
120 g (1 1/4 cup) all purpose flour
50 g (1/2 cup) chopped walnuts
50 g (1/2 cup) chopped almonds
handful of raisins
handful of dried cranberries
lemon zest of one lemon
Preparation
Preheat oven to 170 °C (340 °F).
Grease and flour baking pan of your choice.
In a stand up mixer beat egg whites with sugar until stiff.
Add flour, lemon zest, nuts and dried fruits. Gently fold in with spatula until combined.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
Dust with powdered sugar before serving (optional).
One combination I tested had dried cranberries, raisins, chopped almonds and chopped walnuts and the other one dried figs, dates, raisins, chopped walnuts and chopped pecans.
What would be your favorite combination for this cake?
Happy Easter! Have a peaceful and blessed Easter Sunday 🙂
Pinca, also called Sirnica, is a traditional Croatian Easter sweet bread. It is a rich yeast dough, made with a lot of butter (sometimes lard) and eggs, flavored with citrus zest, candied and/or dried fruit, rum or rosewater. To make the dough into Pinca, you shape it into a round loaf, cut the characteristic cross with kitchen scissors and brush with egg wash before baking.
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In the past, Pinca was the pride of almost every household, each having their own family recipe. It was traditionally kneaded on Easter Eve and baked on Easter morning. Today, along with French Salad, it still often finds its way to the Easter breakfast table.
A while back, when Google+ was still very alive and kicking, we made many great friends there and had tons of fun! We did live cooking hangouts, wrote a book together and much more. One Easter the members of Foodies+ Group, us included, obviously, were making Pinca. Since Google+ sunset, group moved to Facebook, so come aboard!
My Foodies+ friends, not only made wonderful Croatian Easter Bread, but they became ambassadors of Croatian culinary customs around the world!
You can see photos of all of their pincas at the end of the post!
A HUGE thank you for making that Easter special to:
Azlin Bloor, based in UK, but with versatile heritage and cooking experience makes her one of a kind. Check her amazing food collection on her site LinsFood.
Mirella Kaloglou shares many food tips on her site Little Cooking Tips. Check her great insight on Greek gastronomy!
Balvinder Ubi, my fellow Canadian, has a wonderful gluten free recipes blog Simple Gluten Free Kitchen, Indian style.
Rita Dolce, currently living in Spain, but with Middle Eastern background, has many sweet things to share with you on her site Dolce Rita 😉
Shana Shameer, Asian cooking expert, shares her knowledge on Asian cuisine on her site Recipes are Simple.
Indrani Sen, living in India, a cook, a techy and a traveler, shares her amazing food, tech and travel experience on her site Indrani’s recipes cooking and travel blog.
Joy Stewart, living in USA, married into a Peruvian family, shares many interesting South and North American dishes on her site The Joyous Kitchen.
Kanak Hagjer blends Indian flavors in her delicious Indian dishes on her site Blending Flavours.
Tools
Kitchen scissors to make that final touch, the characteristic cross on the top 😉
Pastry brush helps you finalize your Easter Bread by applying the whisked egg on it.
Mixing bowls. To combine all the ingredients together, you need to mix them somewhere. Mixing bowls to the rescue! Make sure bowls you use are adequately sized. There are few things worse than overflowing bowls.
Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things; alternatively, you can use cups, in which case…
Measuring cups. Sometimes when you buy measuring cups, measuring spoons come with them
75 g (1/3 cup) lard (it can be substituted with butter)
150 ml (2/3 cup) warm milk
80 g (2/3 cup) sour cream
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
40 ml (3 tbsp) rum
40 g (1/4 cup) raisins
50 g (1/3 cup) mixed candied fruit
finely grated zest of 1 orange
finely grated zest of ½ lemon
Ingredients for the egg wash
1 whisked egg
sugar to taste
Preparation
Soak raisins in rum.
Sift flour into a bowl. Add salt, sugar and vanilla sugar.
Dissolve yeast in warm milk and add to the flour mixture. Add eggs, yolk, sour cream and citrus zest. Then add candied fruit and raisins together with rum. Knead until soft dough forms. Make sure to knead it for about 10 minutes. Cover with clean kitchen towel and let rise in warm place until doubled in size (about 1 hour).
Punch the dough and knead it again, adding melted and cooled butter and lard. Cover with clean kitchen towel and let rise in warm place until again doubled in size.
Shape the dough into 5 round loafs and place them onto baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Let them rest for 30 minutes. Using kitchen scissors, cut a cross into the surface of each bun. Brush the surface with whisked egg and let stand for 10 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180 °C (355 °F).
Bake for 30-35 minutes. While still hot, brush again with whisked egg and sprinkle with sugar.
