A Baltic Christmas Day 22 - Lithuanian Christmas Eve Biscuits | Kūčiukai

June writes at My Food Odyssey, about her life in the Lithuanian countryside, her travels, but mostly about food. A supporter of using local ingredients and cooking from scratch, please welcome June today for Day 22 of 24 Days of a Baltic Christmas, on the traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve cookies.

Christmas is a time for tradition. What’s fascinating to me is how much those traditions vary from country to country and even from family to family. Some children post their letter to Santa up the chimney, some through the regular mail. Some leave out milk and cookies for Santa, but in our house it was a bottle of Guinness and a few mince pies. (Clever ole Dad!) Some traditions don’t believe in Santa at all.

Being somewhat food obsessed, to me the most interesting differences are centred round the foods we eat and how we prepare and serve those foods. In Ireland, the main Christmas feast is served on Christmas Day and typically includes roast turkey, baked ham, boiled Brussels sprouts and roast potatoes. Sweet treats include iced Christmas cake, brandy-laced Christmas pudding and mince pies. Most of these foods are not traditional used in Lithuanian Christmas cooking and in many cases are impossible to source here.

In Lithuania, the main celebration is on Christmas Eve. The meal, known as Kūčios, consists of 12 meatless dishes and typically includes herring, sauerkraut, potatoes, mushrooms, beetroot, carrots and stuffed eggs. For dessert there is a stodgy cranberry drink known as kisielius and bite-sized biscuits called kūčiukai (koo-chuck-ay) made with poppy seeds.

Kūčiukai are typically served with a glass of milk. Old traditions dictated that no animal products, including dairy products, should be consumed on Christmas Eve and so poppy seed milk was used in place of dairy milk. In many regions this custom has now petered out and dairy milk is used. In some homes the biscuits are soaked in milk before eating, in others the milk is served as a drink on the side.

Kūčiukai are widely available in the supermarkets here, but they are generally mass-produced and full of unnecessary ingredients. They are incredibly simple to make and only require a small number of ingredients so this year I decided to make my own. I always feel that the tradition of making the food is as important as the food itself. We always made our own Christmas cake and pudding and now that I’ve chosen to live here in Lithuania I want to start a new tradition of always making my own kūčiukai.

I use butter in my kūčiukai. Traditionally, only foods typically available during a Lithuanian winter could be used in preparing dishes for the Christmas Eve feast. To me, butter is one of the oldest and most natural cooking fats and fits well with this tradition. Many recipes I found both online and in books used butter as an ingredient. However, if you prefer to stay with the tradition of avoiding dairy products while still using traditional Lithuanian ingredients, I suggest replacing the butter in the recipe with 25 mls (2 Tbsp) of rapeseed or sunflower oil.

Note: Poppy seeds are widely available in Lithuania, particularly at this time of year. They also appear to be widely available in the US. In Ireland I’m not sure if they are available in supermarkets, but they should be available in Health Food stores or in Polish or Lithuanian supermarkets, if you happen to live near one.

See recipe here: Lithuanian Christmas Eve Biscuits | Kūčiukai

Thank you to June, for your contribution to 24 Days of a Baltic Christmas! (This article first appeared on www.myfoododyssey.com.) You can also find June on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Tomorrow a trip to the Talinn and Rīga Christmas markets with Heather!