Just over ten days ago this Dublin girl moved to Edinburgh to find work and start a new life. I’m living in a flat in old town with a Bulgarian, a Dutchwoman, and Irishman and a Norwegian. Since I arrived I’ve been doing a lot of baking, what with it being Easter and all. Last Monday was Hot Cross Buns, Wednesday was Cinnamon Buns, Friday was Biscotti di Prato (I had intended to make more Hot Cross Buns for Good Friday but felt like something different), and Saturday was learning to make Cozonac with my Bulgarian flat mate’s Bulgarian girlfriend.
Cozonac is a delicious Bulgarian and Romanian cake which is eaten at Easter. Having eaten my fair share of this scrumptious treat, I decided to do a bit of research about this famous Bulgarian cake that I had never heard about.
On Europe day 2006, Austria (then president of the EU) held a party in 27 cafes across the 25 member states and the two countries that would join in six months time. Each country was represented by a typical sweet or cake in a presentation called 'Sweet Europe' and Romania was represented with Cozonac. Flicking through all the desserts, I saw some old favourites. Ireland was represented by scones – a childhood classic, The U.K. with Shortbread and Italy with one of my favourite desserts; Tiramisu.
There are however plenty of sweets that I’ve never even heard of before. Dobos Torte from Hungary; a five layer chocolate and butter cream extravaganza topped with caramel slices and sometimes coated with hazelnuts or chestnuts –YUM!! Lithuania certainly impressed with its spiky Šakotis, which looks like it would be frighteningly difficult to cook in my oven….
The plan is to attempt to bake every single treat on that list, thus improving my culinary skills and learning a thing or two about the other nation-states that I am so proud to be unified with. This is all obviously influenced by the Julie/Julia Project and Film, a fantastically funny and successful attempt at cooking every recipe from ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ in one year. I have absolutely no intention on setting myself a time limit to cook these sweets. My waist couldn’t handle it and I wouldn’t like to feel under pressure to find a spit-roast oven to cook my Šakotis, it’s not worth compromising the quality of the puddings with inferior equipment or ingredients. Also I’m cooking the sweets in no particular order. The European Union’s motto is ‘Unity in Diversity’; so I’m going to incorporate that in to this project by cooking the dishes in a completely random order
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I’ll keep you posted with how I get on, where I get the recipes from and whatever disasters that may arise...
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