Vánočka is a kind of sweet Christmas braided bread with raisins soaked in rum, generously sprinkled with chopped almonds. Everyone here in the Czech Republic knows: When homemade vánočka comes out of the oven, Christmas is on the doorstep!
What Is Vánočka
Vánočka is a traditional Czech sweet bread baked at Christmas. It is made from yeasted dough, braided into a long loaf shape.
This Christmas bread is supposed to look like Baby Jesus wrapped in a swaddling blanket, which is why it’s a symbol of a new life and fertility.
Vánočka tastes best sliced with butter and a little jam on Christmas morning. Add white coffee or cocoa, and you have the typical holiday breakfast!
History
If you’re an American with Czech roots, you may know vánočka as houska or hoska.
It’s because historically, vánočka was called houska. It was only later that this name started meaning a different kind of pastry.
These days, the name houska in the Czech republic means much smaller savory braided white bread, widely available in the Czech stores.
Take a look at what Czechs call houska currently.
Many Bohemians and Moravians migrated to the USA at the turn of 19./20. century, when the vánočka was still called houska. This name was carried over to the USA by Bohemian emigrants and used even by their descendants.
That’s the reason why modern Czechs call the Christmas bread vánočka, while the name houska might be more common in the USA.
FUN FACTS: Other names for vánočka used in certain Czech regions are calta, vandrovnice or štědrovnice.
The term štědrovnice comes from North Bohemia (Jizera and Giant Mountains), where I live with my family!
More Czech stuff to explore: What do Czechs eat at Christmas
Ingredients
Let’s move and get together all the necessary ingredients to bake vánočka!
You will need:
- All-purpose flour; gluten-rich
- Unsalted butter; melted and cooled
- Granulated sugar
- Bleached almonds; finely chopped
- Raisins; soaked in rum overnight
- Yeast; I use fresh yeast, but instant yeast will work as well
- Milk; lukewarm
- Eggs; for dough and egg wash
- Vanilla essence
- Lemon zest; freshly grated
- Salt
✅ You’ll find the exact amount of ingredients below in the recipe card, which you can also print out.
Some proven Czech recipes call for pork lard instead of butter. I tried both variants, and each tastes just as good!
More Czech Christmas recipes:
- Linecké cukroví – Linzer cookies with jam
- Vanilkové rohlíčky – Czech favorite "vánoční cukroví"
- Včelí úly – Czech non-bake Christmas cookies with a hint of rum
MY TIP: Our Czech neighbors to the west, in Germany, have a similar recipe. It's called Hefezopf and, like Czech vanocka, it is a sweet braided Christmas bread.
Instructions
Making the vánočka takes a lot of time, but the result is worth it.
Here is a quick summary of how to make vánočka from scratch. You will find more details further in the recipe card.
- In a large bowl, sift flour and add yeast, a little warm milk, and a sugar sprinkle. Mix yeast, warm milk, and flour in the middle, and let it rise for 30 minutes in the warm place.
- In a bowl, whisk an egg with the rest of the warm milk and melted butter. Add to the flour with yeast.
- Add salt, the rest of the sugar, vanilla essence, and lemon zest.
- Knead the vánočka dough thoroughly using a stand mixer or your hands. In the end, incorporate raisins soaked in rum and chopped almonds.
- Let the dough rise for a further 30 minutes.
- Divide the risen dough into 2 parts, make one bigger and one smaller braid and stack the smaller on the top of a bigger one.
- Stick 3 wooden skewers vertically into the vánočka; they will help keep the shape of vánočka better.
- Let the vánočka rise for another 1 hour.
- Brush the vánočka with egg wash, sprinkle with chopped almonds and bake it in preheated oven for 40-50 minutes.
- Cover the vánočka halfway through the baking time (when the surface gets gold) with a tin foil.
After finishing, take out the skewers and dust with powdered sugar.
⤍ Learn how to make dough rise in the oven.
Best Tips to Make Vánočka Right
You need to knead the vánočka dough well.
If you only mashed the ingredients together, the gluten making the vánočka airy and fluffy wouldn’t develop, and the result would be a fallen and flat Christmas bread.
- Use your stand kitchen mixer with an appropriate hook and let it knead for at least 10 minutes.
- I knead yeasted dough only with my hands. It takes some time (about 15 minutes), but I can feel the dough in my fingers, and I recognize the moment pretty well when it’s well done.
- The vánočka dough contains fat (in the Czech Republic, we use unsalted butter or pork lard). There’s a rule of thumb that the more fat the dough contains, the worse it rises because it’s “heavier”.
- Vánočka rises twice. First as the dough, and the second time already braided. Add the time required to activate the yeast (30 minutes, see recipe description).
- While rising the vánočka, you have to make sure that its surface never dries out. I let the vánočka rise in a closed oven that is turned off with a small pot full of hot water at the bottom.
- I stick 3 wooden skewers into the vánočka to better hold its shape: in the middle and both ends.
The skewers are stuck into the vánočka once you braid it and let it rise for the second time. Skewers are taken out only after the vánočka is baked.
Why Is Vánočka Braided
Cross-braiding the vánočka has a meaning!
In the past, Czechs believed that braiding the vánočka protects people from rage and fury. Vánočka is braided so that the family goes peacefully and well next year.
From the baker's point of view, the braided vánočka has a better texture and is pretty soft and flaky.
Classical vánočka is made of 9 strands, but I don’t want to bother myself with this art of braiding.
I make vánočka from 6 strands (3+3 or even 3+2), a base, and a top layer. Vánočka looks and tastes great without resorting to overly complicated braiding patterns.
If you want to braid the vánočka from different amounts strands, I highly recommend watching this video, where all the process is nicely shown: How to braid Czech Christmas bread
Don’t stress yourself if the Christmas bread doesn’t turn into the perfect shape. There's no "bad" vánočka. It all tastes good!
Want more smell and aroma of Czech Christmas? Try Czech spiced wine, called "svařák"!
Pronunciation
For those who’re curious how to pronounce vánočka correctly:
Vánočka is pronounced as: /ˈvaːnot͡ʃka/
I also recorded a short audio clip:
Vánočka is one of several Czechoslovak bread recipes. Czechs and Slovaks lived in one country (Czechoslovakia), which split in 1993 to form separate Czech and Slovak Republics.
We still have many common recipes with the Slovaks, like the sweet Christmas bread – in Slovakia, they call it „vianočka“.
The Easter bread in the Czech Republic is called mazanec.
Superstitions around Vánočka
Czechs have a lot of old superstitions, meant to help with the vánočka making.
Here are three nice examples:
- The cook has to have a white apron and a white bonnet or scarf while making the vánočka.
- Nobody can talk in the room while the cook prepares the dough for vánočka.
- Children can’t play and jump around the place where the dough rises, but the cook should jump the highest they can so the dough rises well, and the resultant vánočka tastes good.
Tried this recipe?
Leave a review down in the comments! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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Vánočka – Czech Braided Sweet Bread
Ingredients
- 2 and ½ cups (330 g) all-purpose flour
- ⅔ stick (75 g) unsalted butter
- ⅓ cup (65 g) granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup (35 g) blanched almonds finelly chopped
- ⅓ cup (35 g) raisins soaked in rum
- 20 g fresh yeast or 1 and ½ tsp instant yeast
- ½ cup 120 ml milk lukewarm
- 1 egg for dough
- vanilla essence
- lemon zest freshly grated
- 1 egg for egg wash
- ½ tsp salt
- blanched almonds chopped to sprinkle the top of vánočka
Instructions
- Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl, make a well in the center.
- Crumble the fresh yeast (or add dried yeast) into the well sprinkle with 1 tsp sugar. Pour over with a little lukewarm milk and carefully mix the liquid center together with a little flour until a mass similar to the semi-liquid batter is created. Dust with some flour and place the bowl with the mixture into the oven which is turned off. Put in the bottom of the oven a small pot with hot water. Close the oven door and let the yeast work for 30 minutes. The activated yeast should be bubbly and frothy after.
- Pour the rest milk into a bowl, add melted butter and an egg. Whisk together. Add to the flour mixture.
- Add remaining sugar, lemon zest, vanilla essence, salt. Knead everything together until the result is smooth and slightly sticky. If you use a kitchen mixer, knead the dough for 10 minutes using a paddle attachment. Kneading the dough with your hand, count on 15 minutes to finish.
- In the end, incorporate drained raisins and chopped almonds into the dough.
- Let the dough rise for a further 30 minutes in the warm place (ideally again in the steamy warm environment in the oven).
- Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Divide the risen dough into 2 parts (60 % and 40 %). Cur each part into 3 pieces. Roll out pieces into long strands. Braid strands as if you braided someone’s hair.
- Place the bigger braid as the base onto a lined baking tray. Flatten the middle a bit with the side of your hand and put there the other (smaller) braid on the top of the upper braid.
- Stick 3 skewers vertically into the vánočka: one in the middle, the second, and third on the ends. Skewers will help the vánočka to hold a nice shape during the rising and baking.
- Let the vánočka rise for 1 hour in a warm place (again, the best environment is in the oven with a pot with hot water inside).
- Make egg wash: whisk an egg with a fork, brush the surface of vánočka. Sprinkle with chopped almonds.
- Pre-heat oven to 320 °F (160 °C).
- Bake vánočka for 40-50 minutes. Beware! The vánočka will start to get gold in the middle of baking, cover it with tin foil so it doesn’t burn.
- Make a skewer test at the end of the baking: Insert a wooden skewer into the center of vánočka, it should come out clean, without any streaks of non-baked dough. This is a sign that the vánočka is finished!
- Take the vánočka out of the oven, remove the tin foil and skewers.
- Dust vánočka with powdered sugar.
Notes
DISCLAIMER: Because I come from Central Europe, my recipes are based on metric units such as grams or milliliters. Check out how I convert metric units to the U.S. system:
Conversion chart
Michael Lloyd of family Zajicek, Liberda & Havran
Very, very close to my Grannie's recipe. Her grandfather and his sister emigrated to Texas in the 1870's and settled around Lagrange. I was told they had run a bakery in Praha, but they farmed here. Grannie's recipe did have a few differences: currents rather than raisins, added a bit of nutmeg and another egg and she used AP and bread flour, about 4 to 1. She also braided 9 pieces, 4 on bottom, 3 in middle, 2 on top. We loved the "Christmas Twist" so much, my brother and I once devoured an entire loaf one afternoon, toasting and buttering slice after slice! Grannie just laughed, luckily she and Mom had made several more and were planning on at least 2 more. They had to go get more ingredients, so they made 3 more!
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Michael, thank you so much for your comment, I have to smile here, I love memories like this! 🙂 We all know that vánočka Christmas bread tastes best fresh out of the oven, same here, at least one is eaten the same day it's baked. Thanks also for mentioning the ingredients your Granny used. Nutmeg was common in baking sweet pastries in our country and is sometimes found in old Czech recipes even now. Sending many greetings to Texas, Petra
Sandy
Petra, thank you so much for finally clearing up a dispute we have been having in our family. The difference between houska and vanocka. I am 70 years old and my parents and grandparents have always called this braided bread houska. My grandma was born in Moravia in 1903 and always called it houska. Recently my daughter-in-law decided to make this and searched the web for recipes. She told me that this bread was called vanocka. I am glad to know now that we are both correct. Thanks!
Petra Kupská
Of course, you're both right! 🙂 I was also surprised at first because, in today's Czech Republic, a houska means a more miniature braided pastry that is salty. But then I found out that in the past (around the turn of the 19th and 2nd centuries), the name houska was used to refer to today's vánočka bread! I have to say that I am excited about such findings, and I am very interested in how the Czech language evolves over time.
sue kepka
so wonderful to find this recipe, thank you. My mum went to Czechoslovakia with my dad, a Czech pilot after the WW2 and learnt how to make Vanochka . I remember always loving it. Mum died two years ago and in latter years was unable to make it. I am going to have a go!
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Sue, thank you for your lovely comment! My fingers are crossed that the Vánočka Christmas bread is a success. I believe you will enjoy it! Krásné Vánoce from Bohemia ????
Marian
We found this recipe last year and made it after years of using others and not being totally happy with the results. Our vanocka was great and can’t wait to get started on this year’s.
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Marian, many thanks for your kind comment, it made me happy ???? I'm glad the Vánočka bread was a success! Krásné Vánoce (Merry Christmas) for you and your family ????
Tim
Petra,
This sounds similar to a bread my grandmother, whose parents moved to the U.S. from Czechoslovakia sometime around the turn of the century, made every Christmas. She called her bread "buthda" (that's how it sounded, anyway, but I'm not sure of the spelling). Any ideas what this is? I've never made it, but I recently asked my sister for the recipe. I remember it has some type of candied fruit in it instead of raisins soaked in rum overnight. I remember liking it. My father remembers toasting it when he was a kid. This might have been due to the fact that it seemed to dry out quickly. I'm just curious if you, or anyone else reading, might know what bread I'm talking about. Thank you!
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Tim,
Thank you for your lovely comment. I wonder what kind of pastry your babicka (grandmother) might have made called 'buthda'. The name reminds me of the Czech word 'buchta', which is a generic term for a sweet pastry baked on a baking sheet (a sheet cake). The batter is poured onto a baking sheet and covered with fruit. Here is an example: Bublanina fruit cake
Another option is 'buchty', made with yeast dough and filled with fruit, cream cheese (tvaroh), or poppy seeds. Here is the recipe: Czech buchty
Could any of these be what you're looking for?
Veselé Vánoce and Merry Christmas from Bohemia to you and your family! Petra
Maggie Josefy
My mom passed down a vanocka recipe to me and my daughter. She always used citron,( candied fruit) and raisins. I hope this helps.
Sigrid Skarda
Ahoj Petra,
just found your web side by googeling for Buchty. What a nice find.
I have been cooking for my Czech husband for many years, but it's great to have a different cook as an example. I'm German and learned Czech cooking from my husband's memory of his moms cooking. He is from the Plzen region. It's not the same as having real Czech cooing lessons.
Maybe he will like your Buchty better, didn't know about the rum.
Vesele Vanoce from California.
Sigrid.
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Sigrid,
Thank you so much for your kind comment. Buchty is a typical Czech pastry, maybe a bit more challenging to prepare, but definitely worth a try!
Regarding the rum, in the Czech Republic, we use a specific rum, which is actually not even rum. If you are based in the US, I recommend Kirkland spiced rum (available at Costco) or Austrian Stroh 54. Brushing the buchty buns with rum gives them a delicious final taste.
Veselé Vánoce, Merry Christmas and frohe Weihnachten! 🙂
P. S. Plzen (Pilsen) is world-famous for the production of great Czech beer ????
Milena Bartik
I have been baking vanocka for years, so this christmas i tried yours, so far everything that I made from your website worked out well, but vanocka not so much. Taste was amazing, but dry and crumbly, what did I do wrong. I will keep trying over and over, until I get it right, but maybe you can give me some pointers.
Petra Kupská
Milena, I am so sorry to hear this. It’s my fault! This recipe for vanocka bread was one of the first ones I shared on the blog. I still lacked experience in accurately converting metric measurements to the US imperial system. This year I baked 8 vanockas in succession, tweaking the dough, baking time, and keeping careful notes of everything. I think I now have a very good recipe with a whole process. I just need to write it up and post it (the damn lack of time!). But you speak Czech without any problem, don't you? 🙂 I have the recipe already written in the Czech language here: https://www.klasicke-recepty.cz/vanocka/
According to the old cookbooks, I started adding grated nutmeg to the vanocka and the resulting taste pleasantly surprised me. I apologize again, now you've pushed me to modify the recipe here!
Zdravím tě moc z Čech, Petra
Milena Bartik
No apology needed, I will definitely try the link, just because something don't work out, it does not mean that I will give up. Your vanocka looks so delicious. As a matter of fact Im printing your recipes right now, because I told my husband that this week we will eat only czech.
Petra Kupská
Oh, thank you for your words! How is the week with Czech food going, is it a success? 🙂
Jill P.
Hi, Petra! My grandmother’s family were Czech immigrants around the turn of the century and she also called this houska! My grandmother made this every Christmas (along with kolaches) and we do looked forward to it. She was never able to write down what she did but I found a recipe that tastes like I remember hers tasting. It includes mace which might be similar tasting to nutmeg? Anyway, my family asks for houska year ‘round so I make it a few times a year! Really enjoying your website—thanks so much for all your stories, recipes and tips!
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Jill, thank you so much for your nice comment! It's the same everywhere: moms and grannies cook by eye, thanks to years of practice, they don't need any written recipes 🙂 I always grate a bit of nutmeg into my Christmas houska, but unfortunately, I have no comparison to mace.
Barbara
Can I use a bread machine for the mix, knead and rise? I will put ingredients in the bread machine in the order suggested in my owner's manual. Also, what is the measurement for the vanilla? And do I put in zest of one whole lemon? Thank you.
Petra Kupská
I think you can make this vanocka in your bread machine without any problems. Add about half a teaspoon of vanilla essence or vanilla paste to the batter, depending on what you have in your pantry. I put lemon zest grated from about half to a whole mid-sized lemon, it doesn't make that much difference. Good luck and happy holidays!
Carey Jasa
Hi!
Just like so many others, my grandmother made this recipe. She, too, called it Houska. And my recipe from her includes instructions like “enough dough to make…”. I’ve figured out amounts by trial and error. She would add the spice mace instead of nutmeg and I like that in kolaches also. Question: can the dough be refrigerated or frozen to bake later? Or better to bake two smaller loaves and freeze the baked bread? Thank you!
Petra Kupská
Hi Carey, because the dough contains live yeast, it should not be frozen. Ideally, bake the houska bread, let it cool, and freeze it as soon as possible. If you want to take out individual portions, it is even better to slice the baked houska before freezing.
Tim J
I just made this. Very tasty. I don't have a Czech grandmother, and I have never had this from a Czech bakery, so I'm not sure how close to the recipe mine came out. It was a little dry to my taste, but whether that was a fault in my baking, or exactly how it should be, I don't know. I note that th recipe as written does not list the amount of lemon rind or vanilla extract to use. I looked at the Czech version of the website, and it looked like about 1 teaspoon of each, that that was what I used. It was also very difficult to mix in the raisins and chopped almonds into the dough after kneading it for 10 minutes in a stand mixer. I don't know if you could offer some suggestion there. Thanks.
Pavel
I remember Vánočka from when I was a kid in Czechoslovakia. My mother was a well regarded baker and after we moved to the West she always lamented that the taste was terribly different. It is the wheat that is/was available here in the USA. Vánočka requires very high gluten content flour. 14 percent protein is a good start if one can find it, and I believe it requires white winter wheat as well, if you want something near authentic. Btw, Houska is a regular bread roll. There is no relationship there. Looking at the slices in your photo, I can (sadly) assure you that what you have is not vánočka, though I am sure it is delicious in it's own way. I am glad that you chose to highlight this food, criticisms notwithstanding. It has religious connotations, or used to have, and was quite important to the Christmas traditions of the country. Cheers.
Mandy
Hmm... I'm wondering what I've been eating for the past 17 years living in the Czech Republic if this isn't Vánočka.
Anicka Cooklikeczechs.com
Thank you so much for your feedback!
Yes, the choice of flour is important for a good baking result and I believe that US flour can taste different than Czech flour.
As for baked goods being referred to by the word Houska, I know there's endless bantering in many discussions about Czech food. What we Czechs currently call a houska is a type of palm-size braided roll of neutral flavor. The old Czechs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries used the word Houska to refer to what is now called Vanocka (Christmas bread). And that is just fine.