Pryaniki

The first pryaniki appeared in Russia in the 9th century and were nothing more than a mixture of rye flour, honey and berry juice. Those pryaniki were the simplest and, perhaps, the tastiest, as honey made up almost 50% of the pryanik. To tell the truth, at that time they were called "honey bread". The name "pryaniki" appeared later, in the 11th-12th centuries, when more and more spices were added to them, and when spices (and their smell), and not honey, gradually became the most typical characteristic of pryaniki pastry.
Pryanik means a product with plenty of spices (pryanosti in Russian). Such spices as cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, wild orange or lemon candied peel, Jamaican pepper, nutmeg, badian, mint, anise, and ginger are usually added to Russian pryaniki; earlier, coriander, galgant, matsis and sometimes vanilla were also used.
As we have already mentioned, there are a lot of types of pryaniki varying in flavouring components. Russian pryaniki in different parts of Russia have special peculiarities. Widely known are Voronezh, Tula, Moscow, Vyazma, and Gorodetsk pryaniki.
Any kind of pryaniki has its typical component. There are honey, rye, wheaten, almond, lemon, mint, raspberry, treacly, sugar and other pryaniki. Some names reflect an additional technological procedure (green, boiling, beaten) or appearance (written, printed, figured, zhemki, i.e. pressed, stamped with a mould).
Russian pryaniki (except for mint and Vyazma) are covered with icing, sometimes multi-coloured, rose, but mainly white. Besides, many pryaniki have a raised pattern (Tula, Vyazma, Gorodets).

Honey Pryaniki (home)

400g wheat flour
100g rye flour
2 yolks
0.75-1 cup milk or curdled milk
125g sour cream
500g honey
1 tbsp caramelized sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 seeds cardamom
4 buds cloves
0.5 tsp badian
1 tsp lemon peel
0.5 tsp soda
Cook honey in a stew pan at low heat until red, skimming it. Use part of it to dissolve rye flour and stir it with the remaining honey. Chill to a little warm and whisk until white. Rub caramelized sugar with yolks and add it to milk. Mix wheat flour with ground spices and add it to the milk-egg mixture. Combine the honey rye mixture with sour cream and add it to the pastry whisking it thoroughly. Put the prepared pastry into a buttered form (or baking pan) as a 1-2 cm layer and bake at low heat. Cut the cooked pryanik into squares. These pryaniki are not glazed.

Raspberry Pryaniki

4 cups dry raspberry
3 cups honey
1.5 cup rye breadcrumbs
2-3 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
Pour 4 cups of boiling water into 3 cups of dry raspberry and boil it at low heat until completely soft. Then press out juice (you should get 3 cups of thick juice), mix it with honey, and boil. Grind well-dried into powder, mix them with the remaining dry raspberry also ground into powder, combine with honey raspberry mix, and make dense pastry. Put the pastry into a low enameled saucepan or bowl and place it into boiling water so that dry raspberry swells and breadcrumbs are boiled soft. Cut this thoroughly boiled pastry into flatbreads and dry them in a preheated and turned off oven. Roll the prepared pryaniki in powdered sugar mixed with vanillin.

Russian Pryaniki

470g flour
100g sugar
160g treacle
23g table margarine
160g honey
17g m

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