Valašský frgál

Appearance & taste

The cake, also popularly called “vdolek”, “pecák” or “lopaťák”, is round, 30 to 32 cm across and golden yellow after baking; the colour of the topping depends on the kind. On top there is a light-coloured crumble, which may be sprinkled with grated gingerbread and cinnamon, drizzled with melted butter and sugared. The dough is thin but compact and pliable, with a fine structure.

Toppings include pears, quark, poppy seed, plum jam (povidla), plums, apples, blueberries, apricots, strawberries, lingonberries, forest fruits, nuts, fresh cabbage or sauerkraut, carrots and kohlrabi – only one kind on each cake. The pear topping consists of a purée of dried pears with plum jam or marmalade, dried apples, gingerbread, star anise and vanilla sugar; cabbage and kohlrabi toppings are seasoned with black pepper and salt.

Production

The dough consists of wheat flour, beet sugar or fructose, vegetable fat, oil, lard or butter, egg yolks or whole eggs, milk, milk powder or water, baker’s yeast and salt; fruit juice and a dough improver may be added. Relative to the flour, at least 20 % fat, 10 % sugar and 5 % egg are required. First the liquid ingredients are beaten smooth, then the melted fats are stirred in, and finally the yeast and, gradually, the flour. The dough is stirred until it forms bubbles and no longer sticks, and is rolled out round from the centre outwards with a one-handed rolling pin, which also comes from Wallachia.

Raw, the topping makes up 42 to 48 % of the weight. Making the dough, topping, baking, cutting and packing take place in the area, because the yeast dough does not tolerate any delay between the steps; the topping itself may also be prepared elsewhere. The cakes lie on round paper bases and are packed whole (600 to 700 g), halved or quartered; for immediate consumption they may also be sold unpacked. Packed and frozen at −18 °C or colder, they keep for nine months.

Origin & history

The Valašsko area in the south-east of the Czech Republic comprises 62 municipalities from Velké Karlovice and Horní Bečva to Fryšták, Vizovice and Brumov. According to the specification, the first written mention of large cakes called “vdolek” or “frgál” is in the “Bromatologia moravo-rustica” by J. H. A. Gallaš from 1826: cakes made of wheat or rye flour, topped with quark, plum jam or a purée of cooked dried pears. They were baked for weddings, christenings, Christmas, Easter and the harvest festival; poor families ate them only at Christmas, richer ones on Sundays too. Their size was determined by the oven peel used to push the bread into the oven.

Traditionally, a pear tree stood next to every house in Wallachia; the most common variety was the small, very sweet “ovesňanka”. The pears were harvested after the first ground frosts, dried whole and slowly in drying rooms that were mostly heated with fruit-tree wood, and stored in cloth bags in the attic. According to the specification, the cakes attracted much attention at the Provincial Exhibition in Prague-Holešovice at the end of the 19th century.