Failing at Koblihy and Bozi Milosti for Masupost

Happy Fat Tuesday!  In the Czech Catholic tradition, the period of days leading up to Ash Wednesday is called Masupost and is similar to what American Southerners know as Mardi Gras, and Carnival that Brazilians celebrate. It’s a time of food, music, costumes, and revelry before the self denial of Lent, the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter.  An article on the Czech Expats website declares five “sinful” foods to have during Masupost, presumably dishes to gorge on before giving up things like sugar or fried foods during Lent. The list includes koblihy (according to the article’s author, “Masopust wouldn’t be Masopust without a batch of Czech carnival donuts”), and bozi milosti. These are fried squares or triangles of unleavened dough sprinkled with powdered sugar.

My mother made neither of these things, and my aunts don’t remember their mother, my grandmother, making them either. However, in an oral interview done with my grandmother in the 1990s, she remembered her mother-in-law (Terezia Migl Kallus, at right with four of her children) making koblihy the day before Ash Wednesday. Apparently, her children and grandchildren would come over to the house in Wied to play dominoes and cards (also given up during Lent) and she would make a “mountain” of koblihy filled with either poppyseed or prune filling and fried in hog lard. All these years, I thought my great grandmother’s choice to fry koblihy that night was a random one, but then realized they’re actually a traditional dish for Masupost. Recipes for both koblihy and bozi milosti can be found in many Texas Czech community cookbooks, so though the word Masupost isn’t mentioned in any of the academic books I have about Texas Czech culture, clearly women were and are still making the sweets associated with the holiday.

I have one fail and one success story about making both of these fried wonders last weekend for my kids.  I offer my fail to highlight the pitfalls of “testing” recipes from community cookbooks. I do this a lot because I have a big, wonderful collection of books. They’re a treasure trove of recipes, but sometimes a crapshoot as far as quality and reliability. Also, my grandmother and mother have passed away, so I don’t have them any longer as a first hand source of cooking advice.

Bozi Milosti

The fail was my first attempt at making bozi milosti. I think the end result looked fine, but the recipe was terrible. Only later comparing it to other recipes, did I realize there was no sugar and no fat in the dough and there should have been. All other recipes included these and I can only assume their addition would have made a significant difference. My pastries tasted like eating cardboard sprinkled with powdered sugar. I’d been hopeful because the recipe was so simple and I certainly know how to fry things, but we were so disappointed. They went straight in the garbage. The recipe came from The West Heritage Cookbook (1986) on a page that had no less than four bozi milosti recipes.

My success was frying koblihy, though the first shaping attempt was a fail (first photo below). I first followed the recipe and cut two circles of dough out, added a dollop of filling on top of one, and then set the other circle on top, pinching around the edges to seal the filling in. The two sides of all the koblihy separated during frying.

Koblihy fail. 

Both sides were delicious (we spread jam on the side that had no filling), but that’s not the look I was going for.  For the next batch, I flattened out one larger circle of dough, plopped the filling in the center, gathered up the sides around it, then rolled it into a ball.

My koblihy, ready to fry, with an egg for size comparison.

They ended up more ball shaped than donut-shaped, but at least the filling stayed inside. There is hardly anything more delicious than hot fried donuts. My sons ate them while playing Magic the Gathering, not cards or dominoes, which they’re unfortunately not giving up any time soon.

Koblihy success.

The recipe below is by Claudia Matura from the Texas Czech Genealogical Society’s book Tribute to Texas Czech Cooks Cookbook (2014), submitted by her granddaughter Elizabeth Ripple. The measurements below made a dozen koblihy and are for half Ripple’s original recipe.

Filled Doughnuts (Koblihy) 

1 cup cream

4 egg yolks

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon vanilla

2 ¼-2 1/2 cups flour

grated rind of ½ lemon

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon brandy or bourbon

1 package of yeast softened in 1/8 cup water

1/8 teaspoon of cardamom

filling of your choice [as for kolaches]

homemade lard or Crisco oil for frying

sugar

Warm cream to lukewarm. Beat egg yolks and slowly add to cream while beating mixture. Let cool Gradually add sugar, salt, vanilla and ½ cup flour. Mix and add lemon rind and juice brandy, yeast, cardamom, and remaining flour. Dough must be very soft.

After all ingredients are added, beat the dough with a wooden spoon until it pulls away from the sides of the bowl and makes a “slapping” noise. Cover bowl and let rise until more than double. Roll out on a floured board until about 1/2 “ thick. Cut into rounds and place a small amount of prune or filling of your choice into center and cover with another round of dough. Pinch edges and recut edges with smaller cutter so that they are well sealed Let rise about 15 minutes. Fry in deep fat. Oil or lard is hot enough when it bubbles around a small piece of dough. Drain on absorbent paper and dip in sugar. You can also fry donuts without filling.

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