From the time immemorial various cakes, cookies and pastries have been made in Vojvodina, among which the most famous are štrudel / štrudla, gibanica, krofne, rezanci with poppy seed, gomboce, tašci with jam, kuglof, milhbrot, koh, etc.
Pastry is prepared from white wheat flour. Its making has a long tradition especially for various occasions in both in form of large or small cakes like ” buthla “ , wedding cake, pidgin cake, cakes with poppy seed, walnuts and
cheese.
In Vojvodina pastries are also made of leavened dough, as štrudel, taken from German cuisine.
Among the most famous is the štrudel with poppy seeds, whose making is a demanding one regarding preparation conditions. Special mortar and pestle were used to pulverise poppy seed, which had to be hit 365 times and it was done by males only. Poppy seeds were put into the thin phyllo and some raisins and sour cream were added. The draught should be prevented in the room where štrudel is made. Also no entrance is allowed to the room during the preparation. Only large quantities of štrudel is made. Besides štrudel with poppy seed there are also štrudel with cheese, walnuts, cherries and raisins.
Another famous pastry of leavened dough, i. e. fried dough foods, is doughnuts, sprinkled with icing sugar or filled with apricot jam.
Some types of unleavened dough or phyllo dough pies are made like gibanica with cheese, cherries, apples or semolina. The most famous pie is bundevara ( pumpkin pie ) or ludajnjača.
During winter days salčići, made of puff pastry, filled with homemade jam and sprinkled with icing sugar, are often found at the dessert table.
Common pastry is called lenja pita which is made with apples, cherries and poppy seed.
German population introduced the making of kuglof, a unique, old style cake, from their cuisine. Our grandmothers used to prepare it as well. It was unavoidable item at every Sunday desert table. Today, Sremski Karlovci is a place famous for this cake, since numerous; tourists buy it either to try it here or to take it away.
One of quickly prepared treats is breaded apples or jabuke u šlafroku, which is served, sprinkled with icing sugar or drizzle with melted chocolate.
If there were no cakes, kitnikez ( prepared of quince and walnuts ) , boiled fruit juices, dried plums, walnuts and honey were served.
Rigojanci ( Rigo Jancsi ) is a traditional chocolate sponge cake with chocolate cream and cognac which dates bасk to the beginning of the the 20th century. At the end of the 19th century the whole Europe knew about the love adventure of the first violinis Rigo Jancsi and the Princess Chimay.
Rigo Jancsi was born in Hungary in a Roma music family. As a child he used to play the violin and later played with his оwn band worldwide. In 1895 he was playing in a noble French restaurant, where Prince Chimay dined with his wife. The young woman was delighted to hear the music and songs and she started coming more frequently to the restaurant. After a while, she liked more than just the music and soon afterwards a scandal broke. She abandoned her husband and two juvenile children and escaped to Hungary with Rigo Jancsi.
She gave her fiancee a fabulous wedding ring. Several years later when the scandal hushed up in the eminent circles in Hungary, they returned to Budapest.
In a pastry shop, where they had coffee and cakes, the violinist wanted to flatter to his wife and asked the pastry chef to make a cake suitable for his darling’ s beauty. Romantic violinist demanded the cake to be as white as his beloved one and also as dark as her hair is. However, the cake was given the name for the first violinist, whose origins are in Banja Kanjiža.
Their love did not last for long, but the dessert kept its position within the group of most favourite world desserts.
There are also small cookies like: damen kapric, zerbo kоске, puslice, padobranci, vanilice, gurabije, oblatne, krempita, princes krofne, medenjaci, bele kiflice . . .