Croatian desserts include Rožata pudding, made from eggs, sugar, milk, lemon, rum and vanilla cooked in a water bath and finished in the oven. Croatian pepper cookies are made from flour, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, honey, egg, walnuts, sugar and lard. North Croatian vanilla cookies are made from butter, sugar, flour, egg yolks, baking powder, vanilla sugar and hazelnuts shaped into crescents. Cvite cookies are an airy anise and citrus cookie made with shortening, sugar, eggs, lemon, orange, vanilla, rum, anise and flour cut into flower shapes and topped with a sugar mixture.

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Croatian desserts-recipes
1. Rožata (Rozata) Pudding - a Croatian Custard
6 eggs
6 tablespoons sugar
1 liter milk
grated lemon rind
1 tablespoon rum
2 teaspoons vanilla
14 sugar cubes
Directions:
Beat all of the eggs with 6 tablespoons. sugar and milk, adding lemon rind, rum and vanilla.
In a separate pot, add the sugar cubes over medium heat cooking until the sugar takes on a honey
color and texture. This takes about 5 minutes and while you should swirl the pan, do not stir as it will
possibly contaminate the syrup with sugar crystals. Pour the caramelized sugar cubes into an oven
safe pudding form before adding the pudding mixture. A glass pie plate also works.
In a second pot bring enough water to reach up to over the halfway point of the form to a boil and
put the filled pudding form into a water bath.
Preheat oven to 350-375 degrees. If you are using a shallow dish, use the lower temperature. Cook
for 45 minute in the water bath, and before the Rožata is finished cooking and remove it from the
water bath. Cook an additional 15 minutes.
After cooling off, carefully turn the Rožata over onto a plate and serve. In summer, one can
refrigerate before serving.

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2. Croatian Pepper Cookies – paprenjaci
Ingredients
450 g flour (for cookies)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons honey (light)
1 egg
150 g walnuts
150 g sugar
180 g lard
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Directions:
Keep lard 20 minutes on room temperature to become soft. Put lard into flour; add sugar,
triturated walnut, yolk, and honey, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and pepper. Make crisp dough
out of it. Leave the dough 1 to 2 hours in cold place. Make thin (up to 5 mm) flat surface and
cut cookies with your wooden mould. If you do not have one, use your mould you have for
other cookies (stars, rabbits, ducks, Santa�s etc.). Put them on greased surface and bake
them on 200°C about 25 minutes. Serve with hot tea. You can vary spices but be careful: no
spice should prevail. I am not sure about number of cookies you will get, depends how big
your mould is.
3. North Croatian Vanilla Cookies (“vanila-Kifli”)
200 g butter

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115 g sugar
250 g flour
3 egg yolks
1/3 teaspoon baking powder
20 g vanilla sugar
125 g hazelnuts (grounded)
Directions:
Mix butter and sugar, vanilla sugar, yolks, baking powder and flour. Mix grounded hazel-nuts.
Make dough.
Make long “sausages” out of dough, cut it into small 2 inch pieces and shape “young moon
shape” thick as a little finger.
4. CROATIAN CVITE - a Croatian cookie recipe
Sweet and Low
Any special occasion wouldn't be complete without these dry, break in your mouth cookies with
an unusual combination of citrus and anise. The bubbly, airy texture of the cookie is due to the
tablespoon of ammonia bicarbonate, which can be bought at the pharmacy. It's dissolved in hot
milk to make a "science project" eruption of foam which is added to the cookie dough. The
ammonia lends an unusual but delightful taste and texture which lends to the cookie's dry, bubbly
texture (like well risen bread).
It's called Cvite (svee-tuh), which means Flowers, and is cut to resemble a stem with leaves and
flowers. I prefer using a pizza dough cookie cutter to give them a zig-zag edge, but using a knife
is perfectly acceptable. Practically speaking, they end up looking like a "V" (peace symbol made
with two fingers) or a "Y"-shape.
How to's for the ultimate baked cookie recipe
The recipe
Whip up four egg whites, preferably from farm fresh eggs. When they are stiff, cover them and
put them in the refrigerator.
In a medium sized bowl, whip together the following, step by step:
First, cream together the shortening and the sugar.
1 cup of white sugar
1 cup of shortening - preferably bacon grease or lard - it gives a slightly salty taste

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Second, add the egg yolks, one at a time to ensure good blending.
4 egg yolks (home grown is well worth the trouble - find a farmer!)
And now for the flavorings:
Rind of one lemon
Rind of one orange
1 T. vanilla
1 T. Rum
1/2 T. anise flavoring
Mix well.
Dry Ingredients:
In a separate, larger bowl, mix together 1 tsp salt into a pound of regular self rising flour and a
pound of cake flour. Mix well with a fork or a pastry blender, until it has a nice fine
consistency.
Make a well in the center - in other words, dig a big hole in the center of your bowl. In the big
hole, and add the wet mixture (egg yolks, vanilla, etc).
Now for the Science Part
Here comes the fun part:
On the stove heat up a little bit of milk - no more than 1/2 a cup. When it starts to rise, add a
heaping tablespoon of already prepared amonia powder. If it has lumps, it needs to be crushed
so it will dissolve easily into the milk.
Holding the pot with a potholder of course, with the batter underneath, mix the spoonful of
ammonia into the milk, and the whole pot will overflow with foam! No problem, let it fall right into
the batter. A never ending stream of foam will erupt into the batter, which needs to be mixed well
at the end.
Now retrieve the already beaten egg whites from the fridge and mix a little bit more.
When the batter is nice and mixed, let it sit for a half hour - cover with a fresh clean towel or
dishrag and leave it out at room temperature. It is still in shock!
You may need to add a little more flour to absorb the moisture from the milk and egg whites. The
blob of dough should be moist and supple, a little like a generous blob of clay to work with (a bit
later!).

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Croatian cookies - roll and cut like a puzzle
These cookies are made in Croatia - and as far as I know - nowhere else.
Arrange the Cookies in a nice Formation
The cookies should not touch. Try to maximize space because they don't stretch out while they
bake.
Source: my personal photo

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Rolling out the dough
It should be sweet, but not sticky. If it sticks to your fingers, add more flour (a little more -
easier to add than to take away!) The dough should also be moist. Too much flour creates
dryness.
The end result of the cookie should be about as thick as your little finger, as long as you are not
Shrek. Keeping this in mind, while rolling out the dough, your aim is to create the same thickness
across the table. Subtle or not so subtle differences in thickness results in burned cookies, since
some will be done much earlier. Keep the thickness around 1 miimeters, patting down with your
hands (a love pat) to give the cookies a good start.
I usually roll them out on the kitchen table, by making a big circle and cutting outwards. Then I
trim the outside edges of my "ink blot" with the pizza cutter. From the center outwards, I start
making inverted and upright triangles, which will become cvite.
Bake me a Cvita
On a moderately oiled cookie sheet, put as many cvite as you can (inverting the triangle shapes,
of course) since they don't spread out at all.
The bake in about 10 minutes (you will smell them - mmm) at 375 F. or 210 degrees C. Normal
baking temperature for sweets like cake, etc., is 325 to 350 or 180 to 200. This cookie goes up a
notch - it cooks quickly at a slightly higher temperature.
One batch makes around four cookie sheets filled with cvite. Once they have cooled down a bit,
they are ready to be topped with the sugar topping.
A note!
Just a note about the sugar in the recipe.
If you know someone who has to seriously limit their sugar, the cup of sugar for the fifty - plus
cookies you will get is not excessive. If you are a diabetic, simply omit about half the sugar and
they are probably considered acceptable to eat. Check with your doctor. I know my father ate
them "bare" without topping, and didn't suffer any consequences.
Now for the topping, which I simply can't imagine omitting!
Sugar topping
Once the cvite are cooled - at least an hour later - you will do the sugar topping.
In a ceramic coffee cup, mix 1 T Rum, 1 tsp Anise flavoring and any other sweet liquor. Paint onto
the cookies with a cooking paintbrush - lightly is fine - then turn them upside down in a plate of
50/50 sugar or sprinkle the sugar on top. 50/50 refers to half granulated, half powdered sugar.

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If you don't have a brush, the back of a table spoon is also a possibility, as is a fork (dip, then
pass the back of the spoon or fork across the top of the cvita).
Storage
These cookies can be stored for a couple of weeks (perhaps more) in a sealed container. Good
for having on hand for unexpected company. That is - if they don't get eaten before hand!
Cvite complete with Croatian styled ribbon