Decorations on a wedding loaf, which were baked, possibly even in pagan times, have their own deep meaning. Ears of wheat, flowers and leaves of viburnum, the Sun and the Moon, stars, swans, birds, horses, etc. are ancient symbols of love and fidelity, inseparability of a young couple, fertility, prosperity. By placing these figures on a loaf, you make it not only unique in performance and beautiful, but also wish the young people happiness.
Instructions
Step 1
Decorations on the loaf are placed in two ways. You can place various figures on its surface either immediately before baking, or 10-15 minutes before it is finally ready. In the second case, small figures will not blur and will turn out to be clearer. But clearly outlined decorations can also be obtained if you use for their manufacture not the same yeast dough as for a loaf, but special, decorative, more pliable in molding, or unleavened, as for dumplings, as well as shortbread.
Step 2
Attach decorations using egg white or small wooden skewers. To make your decorations differ in color from the surface of the loaf, giving it an even more elegant look, try tint the dough. This can be done using buckwheat or rye flour, as well as adding burnt sugar, cocoa, paprika (sweet pepper in powder), turmeric to it.
Step 3
When you place the loaf on a baking sheet, you can immediately wrap it in a braided plait. This will give the product a more solemn and voluminous look, and also prevent the dough from blurring. To make a pigtail, prepare three or four braids two and a half times the length of the loaf's circumference. Blind one end of them together, and then weave a regular braid. If there is a lot of material, the excess can be torn off. Bend the end of the braid nicely and attach it to the loaf with a wooden skewer.
Step 4
To make roses out of the dough, cut out a few thin circles. Place three or four such circles with one edge on top of each other, wrap them with a roll and press in the center with your fingers. When you rip this roll in half, you have two roses. Open the petals in each of them. You can make a rose in another way. To do this, you take one circle and roll it into a roll. Then take another circle and wrap the first "roll" in it, slightly bending the edge of the petal. Wrap other circles in the same way until you get a lush rose.
Step 5
To get the leaves, roll out the dough and cut diamonds out of it. Then use a knife to make small herringbone cuts around the edges. Squeeze out or draw the veins of the leaves with a knife.
Step 6
Dough stars can be obtained like this. Cut out circles with a diameter of one and a half to two centimeters with a tube. Use a knife or scissors to make radial cuts on each circle. Then turn these cuts at an angle of 45 degrees.
Step 7
Wheat ears are an obligatory decoration element of the loaf. Making them is also not difficult. To do this, take a piece of dough and roll it out with a flagella. Do not roll out one end, leaving a thicker "sausage". The thin end will be a cereal stalk, and the thick end will be radially, in a circle, pinched with scissors, making this part look like a spikelet with grains. You can pinch the dough after you put your "spikelet" on the loaf.
Step 8
A bird for decoration is done like this. Roll out the dough into strips about three centimeters long and half a centimeter thick. Tie the strip in a knot. Make a beak from one end of the knot and a tail from the other (flatten the dough). Make cuts on the tail with scissors ("feathers"). Make notches around the edges of the knot.
Step 9
Try to sculpt a swan in this way (of course, there should be two of them on the loaf). Roll out a piece of dough so that you get a flagellum 5-6 cm long, at one end of which there was an oval (future body), and at the other end - a ball (head with a beak). Sculpt the beak, then flatten the oval, make a tail and feather notches on it all over the body. When you lay out the figurine on a baking sheet or loaf surface, bend the swan's neck beautifully.
Step 10
These are the main elements of decorating a loaf. But you can fantasize by inserting other figures - rings, horses, cows, etc. Each region of Russia still has its own peculiarities in the design of a wedding cake. Just do not forget to supplement it with fruits and sprigs of mountain ash and viburnum. They can also be made from dough, but if you find real ones and decorate your product with them, it will be even better.
