Stari Grad
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The Logic of Food: Best Croatian Desserts


The word "dessert" actually comes from the meaning to desert the dining room and move to the drawing or entertainment room for some sweets and drinks.




I've tried frutele on the streets, berry strudels from bakeries, and to our amazement, these three places offered desserts that brought wonders to our eyes and tantalizing bewilderments. The cakes are ranked based on execution, look and finally taste. Being a baker myself, it is always interesting to dissect and analyze how the different ingredients string to harmony.

Here are our top recommendations:

[------Creme de la Creme-------] Split
Honestly, I've only been back to this store twice, and basically ransacked through its latest season of cake collection from Cake Opera to Tiramisu to its Charlotte. You name it.

1. Tarte od Jakube (Apple Crumble Tart) 
I've had apple strudels and tarts in Austria, the city of dessert, but I have never had an apple tart as good as this. The tart shell is crusty, easily broken by fork (unlike some thick, harden shells that I could almost break the plate just to eat it). The bottom layer is coated with caramel, which balances off perfectly with the acidity of the cinnamon apples, cooked to tenderly perfection. It is then topped with almond and crumbles, giving it an additional kick of pizzazz.



 2. Splitska Torta (Dried Fig cake)
I've been told that Pet Bunara has the best dried fig cake, but I want to highlight that the ones served at Creme de la Creme has set high bar of standard. It tastes almost like carrot cake with in-between layers of sponge cake of raisin, walnuts, dried fig, nutmeg and honey as well as buttercream. Such a festive cake, and perfectly suitable for Christmas celebration in my opinion.








[--------Pet Bunara---------]  Zadar

 3. Pistachio Cheesecake
I've never been a big fan of cheesecake, but this was a homerun because it broke all conventions that the crust of a cheesecake needs to be thin. In fact, the crust of this cheese cake is about 1.5cm and it did not bother me a single bit. The crust is dense and creamy at the same time, which somehow melts into your mouth instantly with its light and airy pistachio cream cheese mousse. The pistachio dressing on top is rich, but not overpowering, in fact, it accentuates the cream and marks the high tone of this dessert!




[--------Kod Damira ---------] Stari Grad

4. Marmalade Crepe 
This is a commoner's food, but it is delightful nonetheless. The crepe is crispy around the edges, and soft on the inside with marmalade oozing out from the crispy edges. Egg, milk, butter and marmalade. Simple ingredients, big pleasure.














Other worth mentioning and trying:

- Forum Bakery's Marmalade roll 



 - Samobor Kremsnita (Custard vanilla cream cake)
- Makovnjaca Poppy seed cake 
-

[RECIPE]: Paprenjoki and the Hektorovic family


When we first heard that one of Paprenjck's ingredient is "Papor", we thought maybe it is made of Pepper?  Quite different. 

The Paprenjck, is a traditional cake made from honey, oliver oil, prosek and different spices. The world Papor, is an all-inclusive term for "cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves", 

Each family comes with their own individual recipes, and the taste is something between a gingerbread cookie (without the gingertaste) and an English shortcake. 

The dessert has a rustic charm to it, although the key ingredients are not exactly cheap. 
The earliest memory of this cake is mentioned in Petar Hektorovic's poem, where the fishermen brought him: good wine muškatil, sweet wine (prošek), turta (cake), honeycomb, kaškaval cheese, fruit and paprenakov. 

In his Tvdalj Castle he cultivated his own poultry, silkworms, bees and vegetables. The family also cultivated wheat in the Stari Grad Plain, and made prosek wines in their own tavern inside the Castle. The Hektorovic is pretty much self-sufficient, and althought they don't cultivated exotic herbs like cinnamon and nutmeg, the Stari Grad is is popular transfer point for trading, as it is conveniently located in between ports like Venice and Dubronvik. 


Fascinated by its unique taste and aroma, I searched for it's recipe:

  • The night before, boil a kilogram of honey. When the honey boils and forms froth, remove it with a spoon. Grind the cloves on a board with a wooden hammer and put them into the heated prošek. Fry the saffron, crumble it and put this into the heated prošek as well. 
  • Add a quarter of a litre of olive oil into the honey. Filter the prošek with saffron together with the prošek with cloves. The total amount of prošek added should be a quarter of a litre. 
  • Add a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg and at the end flour with a bit of baking soda to this paste. The quantity of flour is determined by the softness of the paste. Leave to stand for half an hour. Place part of the paste onto a board and add more flour. Cut it into equal pieces. Knead each piece by hand and form small balls. 
  • Place the paste into a greased baking tray and form the paprenjok by hand. Bake at 200 ̊C until it darkens. 
  • It can be decorated as soon as it is cool. Add 150 g of icing sugar to one egg yolk to create icing and then decorate the paprenjoki. 
The proedure looks very much like how you would bake a cookie, except they've used olive oil instead of beating air into butter for that creamy texture. Saffron isn't exactly an inexpensive ingredient, and I wonder how people could afford it back then? 
Perhaps the value of saffron is very different from now. 

Looking at an age-old recipe is always fascinating to me, and perhaps gives a glimpse to how the maritime trade has larlgely increased the variety in tastes and aroma in daily culinary. 

[HVAR, CROATIA] Day 3: Stari Grad Plain, Franciscan Monastery,Fortress, Dalmatino

The City of Scent, Grapes and Carob 

When I first arrived at Stari Grad, I thought I had some sort of illusion from long hour travelling. It was a subtle scent of lavender, rosemary and oregano. And no, I wasn't standing by some lavender vendor booth. 

Even though it is already near the end of the summer season, the lingering smell of Lavender and herbs makes this trip such a cathartic experience, and Hvar has every right to crown itself "The Island of Lavender". 

Sometimes one has to appreciate the sense of nothingness. This is what I felt when I started treking down the path of the Stari Grad Plain. There is a road to inifinity, and everything surrounding me is as if framed in time and distilled to its core essence. 


The Stari Grad Plain is a UNESCO heritage of a land parcel system that was established by Ionian Greeks in the 4th century BC. Since this is the most fertile land on Hvar, even after the Greek colonisers left, the division method of using stones as walls (known as chora), has remained in place, practically untouched for 24 centuries till the present day. As we trek down the plain, we came across many vineyards and olive trees as well as bushes of wild berries. Each alley section is still named after its first original Greek owner and nothing has really changed since then. 


Amazed by the way the tradition has been passed down from generation to generation, I asked our guide, Marco, "Was it pass down from its original families? How did they ensure that they kept the land as it is?" 

He said, "This is the most fertile land on Hvar, and we can make very good quality wine from it, so it would be stupid not to make the most out of this place. The parcel system works extremely well. Everything else is imported from mainland, and its expensive. But the grapes from the plain works very well to cover all these import costs." 


Trying out locally grown produce is always a must for me when I travel, and Dalmatino seemed like a perfect place to give it a try.


[------Today's Order -----] 
- Gnocchi with Black Truffle and mushroom sauce ]
- Fish fillet with tomatoes and spaghetti 

The sampling wines are complementary, and the followings are served 
- Carob wine 
- Lavender with sage wine 
- Prosek: a sweet nectar wine 


The Carob, is a reddish brown bean-like legume, that despite its look, gives rich almost vanilla-like aroma that is used as a replacement of Cocoa for making chocolate in the Mediterranean area. The word "Carat" for measuring diamond actually comes from the Arabic name for carob seeds because of its uniformity in weight, so yes this is a plant of diamond! Eating the fruit slice with the wine, although it is quite strong, opens up the palate for our main dishes. 

Gnocchi with Black Truffles, how are we ever going to get over this? 


The fish fillet is beautifully seasoned and tender, fresh from the ocean! 


Then we had a lavender with sage wine, which for me tasted like sweetened vodka, but at least it had a light and airy aftertaste. So now we can be ready for dessert! 

The dessert wine, is a prosek, made from sweet plum and nectar, which marked a perfect note to the end of our lunch. 

After a big, fulfilling lunch, the afternoon sunshine is ideal for a slow stroll around the Hvar town. We found a 500 year old Cypress in the garden of Franciscan Monastery, along with juxtaposing modern art with work from the Medival times. 


All around the promenade are places that one can jump down for a swim or some suntanning. 


When its close to sunset time, we started walking up to the Spaniard Fortress, and the breathtaking view needs no more words. 



[STARI GRAD, CROATIA] Day 2: Tvrdalj Castle, Bistro Kod Damira

Day 2: Tvrdalj Castle, Bistro Kod Damira 

Poet and nobel Petar Hektorovic has a special bond with the fishermen. 

He is the son of a nobility that when the Turks attacked, he jumped into the Aegean Sea to escape and was rescued by fishermen. In his later years, he wrote poems and travelogues in 1556 , known as "Fishermen and their bantering", which meticulously recorded the fishermen folk songs and their conversations, that shed light to the lifestyle and the integrity of these so called "commoners". In one way or another, Petar fought for a more equal right for commoners, allowing them to seek shelter at his Tvrdalj Castle during Turkish invasions. The Castle has a garden and a mullet pond at the center with fish, and there are various inscriptions around the castle, giving light to the poet's philosophy of life. For example, on the sound side of the fish pond it says " Remember neither riches nor fame, beauty nor age can save you from death, death takes it all." 

In fact, the castle is rustic and yet austere in its own way. It almost reminds me of an aquaponic microcosm, where nobles and commoners are equal, and that the relationship between men and nature are equal and interdependent. 

The garden is full of pomegranade, rosemary, thymes, lemon trees, Persimon tree, roses and various other kind of herbs and fruits. It is no wonder why the poet finds inspiration from this romantique garden. 

Doesn't this look like the door to a secret garden? 

It is such a soothing experience to walk around in this castle, not to mention the playful cat that lives here. 

At night we decided to have dinner at Bistro Kod Damira, and while we are waiting for our food, two round, almond eyes looked at us attentively, twirling and tapping next to our table. I think I have a lot of baby luck, that often led to new conversation with other travellers (While we were taking the ferry from Split to Stari Grad, we also started chatting with a couple from the States when their baby started smiling and reaching our her fingers to me) . So the couple with their 3 year old daughter comes from Hamburg and have already spent 8 days at Hvar Island. They said, " This is by far the best restaurant we've had on the island, where the food is very fresh and not expensive at all!" We are amazed by our luck that we struck upon this pot of gold on our first day on the island! Yoohoo! 




We don't not know what "Paprenjak" is, as the English translation just says "traditional cake", the waiter has no clue, and says "Oh it's a family secret, I don't know what it is!" , so we took a shot to give it a try. 

[-----Our Order -----] 
- Meatloaf 
-Beef tongue with sauce 
-Tomato soup 
- Lavender chocolate Cake 
-Paprenjak (Pepper Cake) 

I ordered the Beef tongue, and I must say this is rivaling its 1st place for Best Beef Tongue with the restaurant that I've had in Czech Republic. It melts in your month instantly and the lightness and smoothness of the horseradish sauce adds such a delicate touch to the taste. 


The Lavender chocolate cake is moist with lavender honey and yet it relatively light and airy. 

The Paprenjak, since we could not identify this unique taste by our taste bud, I did a search on the web for its recipe. 
 
The traditional Paprenjak contains a unique mix of honey and black pepper and also has sugar syrup or honey, butter or fat, eggs, nuts, pepper and various spices such as clove, cinnamon and nutmeg in it. 
Each family probably had their own recipe, and it gets passed down with variations, so no wonder the waiter won't know the family's secret! 
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