A brief history of Christmas sweets

The tradition of preparing sweet Christmas pastries in Central Europe (and Czech Republic) dates probably back to the pre-Christian times. At the winter solstice the Celts celebrated the rebirth of the sun god Belen and on that occasion they baked festive honey cakes. vegan christmas sweets

The Slavs, who mixed with the Celts, who stayed, celebrated the death and rebirth of the sun god Dazbog on Christmas Eve. They believed when Dazbog dies, the time of fury comes, for the world is without its solar rule and various mythical creatures such as werewolves, witches and vampires emerge from the darkness. People were dressing up for the beasts, trying to drive away the real ones and walking around the village in groups, singing, playing various scenes and wishing people happiness and health, for which they received gifts as food, drinks, money and also sweet ceremonial pastries.

More recent age vegan christmas sweets

According to the chronicle from the end of the Middle Ages, people hung sweet pastries on orchard trees, in the rooms and in the stables at Christmas, so that everything would prosper and the family would be happy in the following year. The sweets were sweetened with honey and dried fruit. People were also forming figurines directly from dried fruit with which the children played and then ate them.

The oldest extant Christmas sweets of today’s type are honey gingerbreads – the tradition dates back to the 13th century.

Linzer sweets

City of Linz

Recipe for this Christmas sweets comes from the Austrian city of Linz. Candy wheels are called „Linzer eyes“ and the dough is called „fragile“.

The classic Linzer dough contains one portion of sugar, two portions of fat and three portions of flour.

Recipe for vegan Linzer eyes (or other shapes):

200g coconut oil
300g plain flour
100g icing sugar
1 tablespoon of peanut butter
1 teaspoon of lemon peel

Procedure: vegan christmas sweets

Mix all ingredients together. (Instead of peanut butter, you can squash two bananas.)
Knead the dough and leave it for about an hour at room temperature. Then put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Roll out the dough using a little bit of plain flour.
Aim for 2mm dough thickness.
Cut out the shapes and the same amount of shapes with the inner cuts.
Bake in the oven on the baking sheet for 7-10 minutes at 160 ° C.
Spread the cold cookies with red jam.

Result:

The vegan sweets tasted just like the usual Linzer sweets. No difference.
Honestly, I burned the first sheet, the second came out well, but the third batch was not good to roll because it was too flourish, so I only diced it. 😀