The second week of Great Lent began. Today, March 22, Orthodox residents of the Tambov region celebrate the memory of 40 martyrs of Sevastia. Larks are usually baked on this day – buns in the form of birds.
The recipe for making larks was shared with MK in Tambov by the editor-in-chief of the regional newspaper Muchkapskie Novosti, mother of many children, Taisiya Stepanova.
– We have a big family, so I make dough from two kilograms of flour. I take a glass of sugar, half a liter of water, a pinch of salt, two bags of dry yeast and 250 ml of vegetable oil, – said Taisiya Stepanova.
Dissolve yeast and 2 tablespoons of sugar in warm water, sift the flour separately and mix it with sugar and salt. Then mix the liquid and dry ingredients, gradually adding the vegetable oil. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes. Leave for an hour and a half for proofing.
– And then the flight for children’s imagination begins – we make a flagellum from a lump of dough, tie it in a knot and give it the shape of a bird – we make a head, with a knife we depict feathers and a tail. Instead of a peephole – halves of raisins or buckwheat grains. This year we experimented and instead of a beak they inserted a sunflower nucleolus, – shared a mother with many children.
From this amount of ingredients, about 50 medium birds are obtained.
According to custom, larks are baked on the eve or on the very day of the feast of the Forty Martyrs of Sebastia. Why larks? It is believed that these birds symbolize the song of glory to the Lord, ascended by the martyrs who died for their faith.