April 14, 2022 • 30 mins
Around Easter, lamb-shaped cakes, candies, and butter sculptures grace tables around Central Europe and beyond. Anney and Lauren dig into the sticky science and history of lamb-shaped treats.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to favorite protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Anny Rees and I'm more in Vocal Bomb, and
today we're talking about lamb shaped easter treats, Yes, which
I knew nothing about, okay, Um, prior to this, I'm
(00:29):
familiar with the concept of shaping things I'm more familiar
with like peeps. Okay, okay, I this idea isn't new
to me. However, this whole thing was very very new
to me. And the pictures listeners, if you don't know
(00:53):
what we're talking about, you have to look up the pictures.
I'm not giving you a choice. You have to look
them up. I'm sorry, but they will of you a
mix of delight and like unsettled nous. But I just
really recommend It's it's really deep into the uncanny valley
of of lambs um that we are delving today. Yeah,
(01:18):
it's it's really I this is like primarily a Catholic tradition,
and that is one branch of religion that I am
very unfamiliar with. So so I don't um and religion
and religious custom um. So yeah, I don't have any
personal experience with this, but I guess a few years
(01:38):
ago I started like hearing tell or seeing tell of
of right, these cakes and butter molds of lambs, and
I was like, what what about that? What about that? Indeed,
I still have questions along those lines. Uh, you were
(02:00):
discussing pretty in depth before this how to cut and
each one of these cakes, all right, because it seems
it seems a little bit maccab no matter how you
slice it pun intended. Yes, yeah it does. And they
have like these cute smiles on their face, so all
(02:20):
the time, I don't know, It's beautiful and disturbing all
at once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, I just want to
put this in here. This is one of the few
episodes that we've ever done and we're in like the
hundreds now where I kept getting redirected to a rock
(02:41):
radio station website. Yeah. It's not super uncommon for me
to run across radio station articles uh in in my reading,
but but this one very heavily referenced to this one,
right estatan Yeah. Yeah, And it was very funny in
(03:04):
my opinion, because you'd be like, oh, Easter lamp cakes,
and then you'd be like one five Rock would be
the source that would direct you to. It was just
an interesting experience on many levels. Yes, absolutely, Okay, I
guess that right. Question. Lamb mold shaped things? What are they? Well? Um,
(03:39):
many food products can be molded or otherwise shaped to
resemble other objects, and lamb shaped foods are foods molded
or otherwise shaped to resemble lambs. There you go, there
you go. Um. The lams are generally in a seated position.
(04:02):
Their their little legs like chucked up underneath them. Um.
They're either facing straightforward or to their right, never to
their left. I've never seen a molded lamb facing to
its left anyway. Ridiculous. Uh. In many traditions, lambs are
(04:23):
symbolic of springtime and blessings and innocence and sacrifice and
Christ and so for spring holiday celebrations. This, this symbolism
wound up being extrapolated out over the centuries to all
kinds of products. Uh. Plaster lambs for table centerpieces, sugar
or chocolate or marzipan lambs for Easter baskets, butter lambs
(04:47):
for the dinner table, lamb shaped cakes for dessert. Um.
Some people carve their own lamb shapes, especially in butter,
but there is a whole sub industry of lamb shaped
molds to create these foods. Um. If you're making a
butter or chocolate lamb, the molds are usually going to
be wooden or aluminum or plastic. Um. They come in
(05:07):
various sizes, ranging from the perhaps most common ones that
hold about a stick of butter like a quarter pound
or about a hundred and ten grams um, down to
like we little single serving molds up to full pound varieties.
Lamb candies have all kinds of regional variations. When I
kept reading about U is the Sicilian tradition of marzipan
lambs um that are filled with a sweetened ground pistachio
(05:32):
sound really good? Yeah um. If you're making a lamb cake,
the molds are usually going to be either cast iron
or aluminum, and generally what you're looking at is a
single mold in two pieces um, a deeper one that
contains the lamb's snout and front facing side these are
in your right facing lambs yeah um, and then a
(05:55):
more shallow one that will be the lamb's back facing side.
All right, So what you do here set the front
facing mold face down and fill it with cake batter.
Then place the back mold on top of it, and
as the cake rises in the oven, it fills out
the back mold. Yeah. Yeah, bad has these small events
for steam to escape through. You generally want to secure
(06:17):
it in some way so that the rising batter doesn't
just dribble out of the bottom mold. No, that sounds terrible. Yeah,
there's reasons. There are many, There are many potential pitfalls
and making this type of cake um uh at any rate. Um.
These molds typically hold about six cups of batter, which
(06:39):
is about the same volume as an eight inch around
cake pan, or like half the volume of a ten
inch square pan. If either of those give you a
concept of the size of the sort of mold, it
helped me visualize it. Anyway, I don't know about all y'all. Um,
And yes, everyone on the internet kind of agrees that
undertaking this is hilarious and ill advised but terrific. Uh.
(07:02):
I love it. I love it. So recipes will recommend
um any number of different tricks like right, like a
tying the halves of your mold tightly shut to prevent
that leakage. Um, or perhaps using toothpicks in the ears
and neck force stability, yeah um, or perhaps uh buttering
(07:24):
and flowering your pan like to the nth degree, or
not even just buttering and flowering the pans, but fully
brushing them down with shortening, heating the pans to melt
and coat them with shortening, and then cooling them completely
to set that layer of grease inside the pan. I
had never heard of that method before, and I love it.
(07:46):
Mm hmmm. Um. And yes, these how twos are fabulous. Um.
I couldn't resist putting in a couple of quotes from
a couple of my favorite quotes that I ran across today. Um. One.
This first one comes from a from Bridget Brown blogging
for estate Sales dot net, and she she had the
recommendation to buy candy eyes for decorating the lamb with
(08:11):
not like all over just on the I part. Yeah,
but they kind of look like googly eyes, all right,
And and she said, quote, your lamb will look like
a muppet. She then quotes one Kenneth Jero sh Yarosh
of Chicago's h. Jero shyarsh Bakery. I'm sorry I didn't
look it up. He said, the eyes are the hardest part.
(08:34):
We've always tried to make a respectful looking lamb. They
end up looking quite serious, almost reverent. Brown then continues,
if you're confident in your piping skills, you might consider
a more solemn sheep. But I was quickly becoming very
aware of my limits. And besides, the muppets are awesome,
indeed indeed indeed a respectful looking wow. They end up
(09:00):
quite serious, almost reverent. Um. Having looked up photographs at
um josh Bakery dot com, I feel like this was sarcasm,
but I could be. I could be wrong either way.
They make beautiful looking lamb cakes. They are spectacularly very
(09:23):
lovely that. My second quote is from from from Ruth,
who was writing for mid Century Menu dot com, who
was talking about the recommendation of adding internal support before
baking right um, she said. One of the recipes that
was photocopied from a major cookbook and sent to me
stated in a matter of fact way that the head
(09:44):
of your lamb cake was bound to roll off and
to not worry about it. It claimed that you could
just use toothpicks and frosting to glue it back together
and everything would be great, which is sort of a lie.
Anyone who has ever made a lamb cake and had
the head come off knows it is a delicate procedure.
To get it glued on. You need a whole sticky
frosting and a couple of thousand toothpicks. And when you're done,
the lamb looks like it's wearing a neck brace. And
(10:05):
even after a patch job, you are nervous conserving time.
Oh my goodness, that sounds terrifying, and multiple ways you know,
rolls off. You have to do surgery on the cake,
and then you're scared to serve it, and then you
gotta be scared. Yeah, there's gonna be toothpicks right in
(10:26):
the right anyway. The type of the type of cake
actually used in these molds can vary um, but generally
something that can stand up to uh to standing up. Yeah,
pound cake, bunt cake, sponge cakes are all common. The
cake could be frosted with a creamy white frosting that's
(10:48):
sort of swirled to resemble wool, or dusted with shredded
coconut um and then write given little like chocolate drop
or raisin or jelly bean eyes and a little little noses.
In the European and perhaps especially Check tradition, uh, they're
more likely to just be dusted with powdered sugar rather
than fully frosted. UM. And and I think and especially
(11:13):
the Polish tradition. UM, they're often outfitted with a red
ribbon around the neck um representing the blood of Christ. Also,
the Polish flag is red and white. Also, also in
some Catholic traditions, Christ resurrected is carrying a banner with
a cross with red featuring as the primary or secondary color.
You can also find lamb cakes with with other ribbons
(11:36):
for less symbolic decoration. UM. The lambs can also come
and trippy pastel colors. Oh, I feel like I have
to do some more searching. Yeah, colors. Also a lot
of a lot of bow ties I was noticing. Yeah,
well it's it's a It comes out looking like a
(11:57):
like a bow tie when you tie the ribbon in
a in A. I don't think it's specifically meant to
be a bow tie. Um, but I like to think
it's it looks like a bow tie. Okay, yes, yes, yes,
I hear you, I hear you. Um, Well, what about
(12:19):
the nutrition? Uh, I mean it depends on what kind
of food item you're talking about being shaped like a lamb,
or if you're talking about the concept of a shape again.
We're back in phantom tollbooth territory, like, don't eat the
concept of a shape, don't do that interesting, I don't know,
(12:49):
I don't know. Well, unfortunately, great travesty. We only have
a few numbers for you, oly too, and they both
concerned butter. Yes, so, one company called Danish made reports
selling one four thousand butter lambs a year. Another called
(13:15):
maltet skis cells nearly a hundred thousand. Um, so there
are at least around two hundred and fifty thousand butter
lambs happening around the United States every year. Like that
you said the word happening. Yeah, just occurring, just just
(13:41):
being born, terrifying and wonderful. And listeners, look, if you've
been involved in any of this we have, we've got
to know about it. I need to know everything about
your shaped lamb experience. M hm mm hmmm. And in
(14:02):
the meantime, we we have some history for you. We do.
But first we've got a quick break for a word
from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes,
thank you. So. As you might imagine the history of
(14:24):
this one, it was a bit messy and all over
the place. Um, but we're going to do our best. Yes,
we were always tries to do. Uh. Started with butter moles. Okay, okay, okay.
So farmers first started molding their butter in order to
sell it during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in both
(14:46):
Europe and North America. At the time, farmers could use
things like butter and eggs as a form of currency
to barter with, and they might feel like it assured
the quality and therefore monetary value of their better products
if they had something like a calling card or a trademark. Okay, right,
So they would make these hand carved butter molds so
(15:08):
that people would know like, oh, this chicken one is
from this place, they have great butter or something like that. Uh.
These unique molds were one way that consumers could be
assured that they were getting the good stuff or if
they had like product loyalty or anything like that. Mm hmmm.
In order to accomplish these better shapes, farmers would press
(15:30):
the butter into carved molds, often made of wood, and
then place a decorative stamp into the butter on the
opposite side, on the exposed side. This was a bigger
deal when the farmer wasn't directly involved in the selling process.
They wore around you know. Uh. These designs helped customers
figure out their favorite brands of butter. Uh. And the
(15:53):
molds could come in a variety of shapes and including
the lamb. However, archaeologists have unearthed examples of ancient molds
for food shaping, going back to at least ancient Babylon. Um. Yeah,
I feel like we've talked about it several times, especially
at like those big banquets. Yeah, they liked they like
(16:16):
to do this kind of Yeah. Perhaps, um, perhaps, especially
once you get a little bit later into like aspects
and stuff like that. Yes, speaking of pictures, you need
to look up Oh my goodness, yes aspects. Um. Jumping
ahead to the Renaissance, hand sculpted food molds were popular, yes,
at these banquets. Specifically, the butter lamb is thought to
(16:40):
have originated in Central and Eastern Europe, though again could
have been happening in several places at once. Um. Also,
this is the fact that that one of fact is
that what kept redirecting to a rock radio website. So
just to put that little graphs there, Yeah, I mean
it makes sense to me, but I'm not sure why
this one rock website was rock radio website. Excuse me?
(17:05):
Was the thing that kept popping up. But here we are.
As Catholic immigrants from Europe made their way to the US,
they brought their butter lambs and traditions around. These butter
lambs with them. Um many descended from these communities. They
still call the butter lamd by its Polish name. For instance,
a part of how this tradition was born was almost
(17:25):
certainly related to giving up dairy for lent. One way
to use up this dairy in the meantime was to
turn it into butter. Yeah. This would preserve the dairy
until you could use it again after lent Um and
would give you a nice treat on Easter to help
you break your run of abstinence. I'm continually shocked how
(17:47):
many things, how many topics we cover. We're lent the
key reason or some big part of the history. It
is a thing. Um well, what about the lamb shape? Well,
many think this is in reference to Aligne from the
New Testament. Behold the lamb of God who takes away
(18:08):
the sin of the world, meaning the lamb is a
symbol of Jesus and a lot of interpretations. Yes, the
sacrificial lamb is a symbol of sacrifice, but also goodness
and purity. When the Angel of death came for the
firstborn sons during biblical times. Uh, those that smeared the
blood of sacrifice lambs over their homes were spared. Their
(18:29):
firstborn sons were spared. Uh. Yeah, this is the story
of the passover um in the story of the Exodus.
And uh right, just just for example, a lamb is
still a symbolic part of the Jewish Passover Satyr for
this reason, and Jesus is often referred to as the
Lamb of God or our passover lamb. There's also the
(18:52):
symbolism of God as the as the Shepherd. Yeah, lots
of things going on. According to some sources, the stone
reference to a prayer for the blessing anthe lamb dates
back to seventh century Italy, and two centuries later it
was adopted and rose lamb became a main course of
the pope's Easter dinner um and remained so for hundreds
(19:13):
of years, though eventually a whole lamb was replaced with
pieces of the lamb. And I have to say, I
did go to the grocery store today, and I did
get some lamb for Easter, uh, And I was looking
at for recipes for like cateca lamb, and so many
of them were like the rack of lamb, which is great,
but I was like, no, that is not too much.
(19:37):
One theory that came up a lot during this research
is that for those who couldn't afford the meat of
an actual lamb, they would bake the shape uh in
some type of food thing or shape it into butter. Like.
This is one way of sort of approximating what the
pope was doing. All that being said, many argue that
(19:58):
the origin of the cakes and similar shaped items goes
back to pagan times, when these items were burned in
the place of animals in rituals. On top of that,
due to its pastoral nature, the lamb has long been
symbolic across many cultures UM. And on top of all
of that was a practical reason after the winter, lambs
(20:20):
would have been one of the first animals available to slaughter. UM.
Then bringing this to the United States, UM, there were
huge waves of German, check and Polish immigration to the
US and particularly to the Upper Midwest, starting in the
eighteen twenties and continuing through World War One due to
(20:40):
a number of conflicts going on in Eastern Europe. Uh.
Then a Swedish, Slovak and Italian immigration ramped up after
the American Civil War and continued on. UM and those
who had these lamb related traditions brought them over. By
the way, this is a largely different episode, but lamb
itself is still a pretty popular Easter spring feast meat
(21:06):
choice outside of the United States. Um and was a
more popular meat choice in the US until about World
War Two, after which synthetic fibers began replacing wool and
uh and thus sheep farming became more rare here. Oh
that's interesting. Yeah, that's when the Easter ham began to
(21:29):
really ramp up. That's a tradition, that's what my family. Yeah,
I'm confounded by all of this. Um anyway, um u
UM in an around the mid century. UM Nordic Ware,
the creators of the bunt pan UM. They introduced a
(21:51):
lamb cake mold. It was apparently one of their first
products in the early nineteen fifties. And yeah, just for
for one example, UM, there's this Bavarian family bakery UM
in the Chicago area as well, called called Dinkle's Um
that started producing lamb cakes for Easter when they opened
(22:12):
in n They say that at its peak in the
nineteen seventies, they were selling some twelve thousand lamb cakes
every spring holiday season. Um. They still sell them today,
but apparently only about three hundred or so. Wow. Yeah. Well,
one of the biggest names in terms of butter lambs
is Dorothy Malchetsky mentioned at the top. That's one of
(22:35):
our one of our two numbers that we gave in
the nineteen sixties. Melchetsky debuted her butter lambs in Buffalo,
New York, at a store called the Broadway Market. Uh.
These lambs had a few defining traits. A red ribbon
on their back reading alier how yah, or sometimes it's
like this little tin type thing and a red ribbon
(22:58):
fastened around its neck to present the blood of Christ
as you said, Um, And people had a lot of
nostalgic This was a very nostalgic item from the articles. Yeah,
I love this interesting, I love all of this and
and for serious like, the decorations of these cakes is
(23:21):
gorgeous and bizarre and wonderful. Yes, I'm again that you
have no choice. You have to lick it up. This
is a homework assignment. Yeah, we're giving you. The sheer
range of expressions that can be eked out on these
little lamb cakes is just incredible. It's just really a
(23:44):
sight to behold. It absolutely is. It will change you will.
I love it. It's so wonderful and catchy and um
and and and really right is really nice. I don't know,
I I love I love these like family baking project
kind of things. Yeah, yeah, me too. And again, listeners,
(24:10):
if you have any experience with this, or if you
have any similar things or things that you do for Easter. Um,
my family used to always do the not and nearly
as exciting, but we would do the cupcakes with the
you would put the green shredded coconut and then the
three pastel eminem peanuts on top easter basket. Okay, situation. Yeah,
(24:35):
and they're cute. I that's wonderful. Yeah. So if you
get anything like that, please let us know. We really
really love hearing about that kind of stuff. Um. In
the meanwhile, that's about all that we have to say
(24:57):
about lamb shaped stuff for Easter for now. I don't
want to close this door. Oh, never closed, Never closed, um,
we do have some some male from listeners who have
already written in. But first we've got one more quick
break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
(25:27):
Thank you, sponsoring, Yes, thank you, and we're back with
the snow creepy and yet hopefully somehow kind of cute
involves jelly beans. It involves jelly beans. That sounds I
(25:52):
have a good friend. Uh that could be on her
dating profile. She loves jelly beans. All right, all right, sure,
hi Katie. You know um Amy Route you asked if
it was accurate that instant coffee was so heavily consumed
(26:13):
in Australia and New Zealand. I can't remember the figure
you quoted, but I visited New Zealand for a couple
of weeks in twenty nineteen, and I can confirm that
I was amazed at the ubiquity of instant coffee. Hotels, Airbnb, friends.
We stayed with the only places we found that I
would call good coffee tasty when black was in coffee houses.
(26:35):
Also of note, we had a steep learning curve and
ordering coffee. They don't make drip coffee, only espresso drinks,
so for an American ordering coffee. They automatically made a
long black or an Americano. We couldn't figure out why
anyone would choose instant, but we learned there is a
huge push to only consume food they grow locally. We
(26:56):
went to multiple restaurants who made everything on site absolute incredible.
We expected the breathtaking landscape, but the meals are still
something I dream about. That was longer than expected. And
I'm sure you'll hear from multiple people, but your comment
reminded me of such a lovely time. Maybe I'll bring
myself some instant coffee and look at some picks. You should,
(27:17):
I hope you did. Yeah, I love that. I love that.
I I had the fortune to go to New Zealand,
but I was only there for like a couple of days,
and the food was so good, so good. I don't
remember the coffee. I don't think I was set into
(27:38):
coffee at that point, but just the food. It did
taste very, very fresh, um and even like the kind
of quick items I was impressed with at the time.
That's that's that's wonderful. I've I've not been. Uh, let's go. Yes,
(28:00):
Oh my gosh. Saber goes to New Zealand, that would
be the best we could do that Hobbit tours and
what we do in the shadows. I feel like I've
watched Wellington's Paranormal enough and they named these streets enough
that I'm like, I'm pretty sure this is accurate. I
could get around. But yes, a lot of people, as
(28:21):
we said, run in about instant coffee, so we do
have more instant coffee messages we do in the Meanwhile,
Jesse wrote, when I was in college in the early nineties,
I ran across a phrase from the movie Dune that
got translated into coffee speak that I think you'll appreciate.
It is by caffeine alone, I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed.
(28:44):
The hands begin to shake, the shaking as a warning.
It is by caffeine alone, I set my mind in motion.
If you can find the original sequence from done, it
works really well. Yes, yes, and Jesse followed up at
the clip and it does work very well. Oh, excellent
(29:07):
reading to you, Laura, Oh, thank you, thank you. I
just watched the new Dune movie recently, um, and so
some of my head was kind of in it. Yeah,
you were in the right space. Yeah, that's a great
I mean also, the David Lynch Dune is never that
far from my heart, so I'll never forget. I think
(29:31):
I watched it for the first time right when Quarantine
kind of said it and I was all right, total,
that's what I remember most of because they did the soundtrack. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
oh yeah, it's it's it's a very different it's very
very different take on that property. Um goodness, goodness. Anyways, anyway,
(30:00):
food dude, perhaps that's an episode, but sure, all right
before we get to that. In the meantime, thanks to
both of these listeners for writing in. If you would
like to write to us, you can Our email is
hello at saborpod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
(30:20):
savor pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Sabor is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from My Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope them lots more good things are coming your way,
Hello, and welcome to favorite protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Anny Rees and I'm more in Vocal Bomb, and
today we're talking about lamb shaped easter treats, Yes, which
I knew nothing about, okay, Um, prior to this, I'm
(00:29):
familiar with the concept of shaping things I'm more familiar
with like peeps. Okay, okay, I this idea isn't new
to me. However, this whole thing was very very new
to me. And the pictures listeners, if you don't know
(00:53):
what we're talking about, you have to look up the pictures.
I'm not giving you a choice. You have to look
them up. I'm sorry, but they will of you a
mix of delight and like unsettled nous. But I just
really recommend It's it's really deep into the uncanny valley
of of lambs um that we are delving today. Yeah,
(01:18):
it's it's really I this is like primarily a Catholic tradition,
and that is one branch of religion that I am
very unfamiliar with. So so I don't um and religion
and religious custom um. So yeah, I don't have any
personal experience with this, but I guess a few years
(01:38):
ago I started like hearing tell or seeing tell of
of right, these cakes and butter molds of lambs, and
I was like, what what about that? What about that? Indeed,
I still have questions along those lines. Uh, you were
(02:00):
discussing pretty in depth before this how to cut and
each one of these cakes, all right, because it seems
it seems a little bit maccab no matter how you
slice it pun intended. Yes, yeah it does. And they
have like these cute smiles on their face, so all
(02:20):
the time, I don't know, It's beautiful and disturbing all
at once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, I just want to
put this in here. This is one of the few
episodes that we've ever done and we're in like the
hundreds now where I kept getting redirected to a rock
(02:41):
radio station website. Yeah. It's not super uncommon for me
to run across radio station articles uh in in my reading,
but but this one very heavily referenced to this one,
right estatan Yeah. Yeah, And it was very funny in
(03:04):
my opinion, because you'd be like, oh, Easter lamp cakes,
and then you'd be like one five Rock would be
the source that would direct you to. It was just
an interesting experience on many levels. Yes, absolutely, Okay, I
guess that right. Question. Lamb mold shaped things? What are they? Well? Um,
(03:39):
many food products can be molded or otherwise shaped to
resemble other objects, and lamb shaped foods are foods molded
or otherwise shaped to resemble lambs. There you go, there
you go. Um. The lams are generally in a seated position.
(04:02):
Their their little legs like chucked up underneath them. Um.
They're either facing straightforward or to their right, never to
their left. I've never seen a molded lamb facing to
its left anyway. Ridiculous. Uh. In many traditions, lambs are
(04:23):
symbolic of springtime and blessings and innocence and sacrifice and
Christ and so for spring holiday celebrations. This, this symbolism
wound up being extrapolated out over the centuries to all
kinds of products. Uh. Plaster lambs for table centerpieces, sugar
or chocolate or marzipan lambs for Easter baskets, butter lambs
(04:47):
for the dinner table, lamb shaped cakes for dessert. Um.
Some people carve their own lamb shapes, especially in butter,
but there is a whole sub industry of lamb shaped
molds to create these foods. Um. If you're making a
butter or chocolate lamb, the molds are usually going to
be wooden or aluminum or plastic. Um. They come in
(05:07):
various sizes, ranging from the perhaps most common ones that
hold about a stick of butter like a quarter pound
or about a hundred and ten grams um, down to
like we little single serving molds up to full pound varieties.
Lamb candies have all kinds of regional variations. When I
kept reading about U is the Sicilian tradition of marzipan
lambs um that are filled with a sweetened ground pistachio
(05:32):
sound really good? Yeah um. If you're making a lamb cake,
the molds are usually going to be either cast iron
or aluminum, and generally what you're looking at is a
single mold in two pieces um, a deeper one that
contains the lamb's snout and front facing side these are
in your right facing lambs yeah um, and then a
(05:55):
more shallow one that will be the lamb's back facing side.
All right, So what you do here set the front
facing mold face down and fill it with cake batter.
Then place the back mold on top of it, and
as the cake rises in the oven, it fills out
the back mold. Yeah. Yeah, bad has these small events
for steam to escape through. You generally want to secure
(06:17):
it in some way so that the rising batter doesn't
just dribble out of the bottom mold. No, that sounds terrible. Yeah,
there's reasons. There are many, There are many potential pitfalls
and making this type of cake um uh at any rate. Um.
These molds typically hold about six cups of batter, which
(06:39):
is about the same volume as an eight inch around
cake pan, or like half the volume of a ten
inch square pan. If either of those give you a
concept of the size of the sort of mold, it
helped me visualize it. Anyway, I don't know about all y'all. Um,
And yes, everyone on the internet kind of agrees that
undertaking this is hilarious and ill advised but terrific. Uh.
(07:02):
I love it. I love it. So recipes will recommend
um any number of different tricks like right, like a
tying the halves of your mold tightly shut to prevent
that leakage. Um, or perhaps using toothpicks in the ears
and neck force stability, yeah um, or perhaps uh buttering
(07:24):
and flowering your pan like to the nth degree, or
not even just buttering and flowering the pans, but fully
brushing them down with shortening, heating the pans to melt
and coat them with shortening, and then cooling them completely
to set that layer of grease inside the pan. I
had never heard of that method before, and I love it.
(07:46):
Mm hmmm. Um. And yes, these how twos are fabulous. Um.
I couldn't resist putting in a couple of quotes from
a couple of my favorite quotes that I ran across today. Um. One.
This first one comes from a from Bridget Brown blogging
for estate Sales dot net, and she she had the
recommendation to buy candy eyes for decorating the lamb with
(08:11):
not like all over just on the I part. Yeah,
but they kind of look like googly eyes, all right,
And and she said, quote, your lamb will look like
a muppet. She then quotes one Kenneth Jero sh Yarosh
of Chicago's h. Jero shyarsh Bakery. I'm sorry I didn't
look it up. He said, the eyes are the hardest part.
(08:34):
We've always tried to make a respectful looking lamb. They
end up looking quite serious, almost reverent. Brown then continues,
if you're confident in your piping skills, you might consider
a more solemn sheep. But I was quickly becoming very
aware of my limits. And besides, the muppets are awesome,
indeed indeed indeed a respectful looking wow. They end up
(09:00):
quite serious, almost reverent. Um. Having looked up photographs at
um josh Bakery dot com, I feel like this was sarcasm,
but I could be. I could be wrong either way.
They make beautiful looking lamb cakes. They are spectacularly very
(09:23):
lovely that. My second quote is from from from Ruth,
who was writing for mid Century Menu dot com, who
was talking about the recommendation of adding internal support before
baking right um, she said. One of the recipes that
was photocopied from a major cookbook and sent to me
stated in a matter of fact way that the head
(09:44):
of your lamb cake was bound to roll off and
to not worry about it. It claimed that you could
just use toothpicks and frosting to glue it back together
and everything would be great, which is sort of a lie.
Anyone who has ever made a lamb cake and had
the head come off knows it is a delicate procedure.
To get it glued on. You need a whole sticky
frosting and a couple of thousand toothpicks. And when you're done,
the lamb looks like it's wearing a neck brace. And
(10:05):
even after a patch job, you are nervous conserving time.
Oh my goodness, that sounds terrifying, and multiple ways you know,
rolls off. You have to do surgery on the cake,
and then you're scared to serve it, and then you
gotta be scared. Yeah, there's gonna be toothpicks right in
(10:26):
the right anyway. The type of the type of cake
actually used in these molds can vary um, but generally
something that can stand up to uh to standing up. Yeah,
pound cake, bunt cake, sponge cakes are all common. The
cake could be frosted with a creamy white frosting that's
(10:48):
sort of swirled to resemble wool, or dusted with shredded
coconut um and then write given little like chocolate drop
or raisin or jelly bean eyes and a little little noses.
In the European and perhaps especially Check tradition, uh, they're
more likely to just be dusted with powdered sugar rather
than fully frosted. UM. And and I think and especially
(11:13):
the Polish tradition. UM, they're often outfitted with a red
ribbon around the neck um representing the blood of Christ. Also,
the Polish flag is red and white. Also, also in
some Catholic traditions, Christ resurrected is carrying a banner with
a cross with red featuring as the primary or secondary color.
You can also find lamb cakes with with other ribbons
(11:36):
for less symbolic decoration. UM. The lambs can also come
and trippy pastel colors. Oh, I feel like I have
to do some more searching. Yeah, colors. Also a lot
of a lot of bow ties I was noticing. Yeah,
well it's it's a It comes out looking like a
(11:57):
like a bow tie when you tie the ribbon in
a in A. I don't think it's specifically meant to
be a bow tie. Um, but I like to think
it's it looks like a bow tie. Okay, yes, yes, yes,
I hear you, I hear you. Um, Well, what about
(12:19):
the nutrition? Uh, I mean it depends on what kind
of food item you're talking about being shaped like a lamb,
or if you're talking about the concept of a shape again.
We're back in phantom tollbooth territory, like, don't eat the
concept of a shape, don't do that interesting, I don't know,
(12:49):
I don't know. Well, unfortunately, great travesty. We only have
a few numbers for you, oly too, and they both
concerned butter. Yes, so, one company called Danish made reports
selling one four thousand butter lambs a year. Another called
(13:15):
maltet skis cells nearly a hundred thousand. Um, so there
are at least around two hundred and fifty thousand butter
lambs happening around the United States every year. Like that
you said the word happening. Yeah, just occurring, just just
(13:41):
being born, terrifying and wonderful. And listeners, look, if you've
been involved in any of this we have, we've got
to know about it. I need to know everything about
your shaped lamb experience. M hm mm hmmm. And in
(14:02):
the meantime, we we have some history for you. We do.
But first we've got a quick break for a word
from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes,
thank you. So. As you might imagine the history of
(14:24):
this one, it was a bit messy and all over
the place. Um, but we're going to do our best. Yes,
we were always tries to do. Uh. Started with butter moles. Okay, okay, okay.
So farmers first started molding their butter in order to
sell it during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in both
(14:46):
Europe and North America. At the time, farmers could use
things like butter and eggs as a form of currency
to barter with, and they might feel like it assured
the quality and therefore monetary value of their better products
if they had something like a calling card or a trademark. Okay, right,
So they would make these hand carved butter molds so
(15:08):
that people would know like, oh, this chicken one is
from this place, they have great butter or something like that. Uh.
These unique molds were one way that consumers could be
assured that they were getting the good stuff or if
they had like product loyalty or anything like that. Mm hmmm.
In order to accomplish these better shapes, farmers would press
(15:30):
the butter into carved molds, often made of wood, and
then place a decorative stamp into the butter on the
opposite side, on the exposed side. This was a bigger
deal when the farmer wasn't directly involved in the selling process.
They wore around you know. Uh. These designs helped customers
figure out their favorite brands of butter. Uh. And the
(15:53):
molds could come in a variety of shapes and including
the lamb. However, archaeologists have unearthed examples of ancient molds
for food shaping, going back to at least ancient Babylon. Um. Yeah,
I feel like we've talked about it several times, especially
at like those big banquets. Yeah, they liked they like
(16:16):
to do this kind of Yeah. Perhaps, um, perhaps, especially
once you get a little bit later into like aspects
and stuff like that. Yes, speaking of pictures, you need
to look up Oh my goodness, yes aspects. Um. Jumping
ahead to the Renaissance, hand sculpted food molds were popular, yes,
at these banquets. Specifically, the butter lamb is thought to
(16:40):
have originated in Central and Eastern Europe, though again could
have been happening in several places at once. Um. Also,
this is the fact that that one of fact is
that what kept redirecting to a rock radio website. So
just to put that little graphs there, Yeah, I mean
it makes sense to me, but I'm not sure why
this one rock website was rock radio website. Excuse me?
(17:05):
Was the thing that kept popping up. But here we are.
As Catholic immigrants from Europe made their way to the US,
they brought their butter lambs and traditions around. These butter
lambs with them. Um many descended from these communities. They
still call the butter lamd by its Polish name. For instance,
a part of how this tradition was born was almost
(17:25):
certainly related to giving up dairy for lent. One way
to use up this dairy in the meantime was to
turn it into butter. Yeah. This would preserve the dairy
until you could use it again after lent Um and
would give you a nice treat on Easter to help
you break your run of abstinence. I'm continually shocked how
(17:47):
many things, how many topics we cover. We're lent the
key reason or some big part of the history. It
is a thing. Um well, what about the lamb shape? Well,
many think this is in reference to Aligne from the
New Testament. Behold the lamb of God who takes away
(18:08):
the sin of the world, meaning the lamb is a
symbol of Jesus and a lot of interpretations. Yes, the
sacrificial lamb is a symbol of sacrifice, but also goodness
and purity. When the Angel of death came for the
firstborn sons during biblical times. Uh, those that smeared the
blood of sacrifice lambs over their homes were spared. Their
(18:29):
firstborn sons were spared. Uh. Yeah, this is the story
of the passover um in the story of the Exodus.
And uh right, just just for example, a lamb is
still a symbolic part of the Jewish Passover Satyr for
this reason, and Jesus is often referred to as the
Lamb of God or our passover lamb. There's also the
(18:52):
symbolism of God as the as the Shepherd. Yeah, lots
of things going on. According to some sources, the stone
reference to a prayer for the blessing anthe lamb dates
back to seventh century Italy, and two centuries later it
was adopted and rose lamb became a main course of
the pope's Easter dinner um and remained so for hundreds
(19:13):
of years, though eventually a whole lamb was replaced with
pieces of the lamb. And I have to say, I
did go to the grocery store today, and I did
get some lamb for Easter, uh, And I was looking
at for recipes for like cateca lamb, and so many
of them were like the rack of lamb, which is great,
but I was like, no, that is not too much.
(19:37):
One theory that came up a lot during this research
is that for those who couldn't afford the meat of
an actual lamb, they would bake the shape uh in
some type of food thing or shape it into butter. Like.
This is one way of sort of approximating what the
pope was doing. All that being said, many argue that
(19:58):
the origin of the cakes and similar shaped items goes
back to pagan times, when these items were burned in
the place of animals in rituals. On top of that,
due to its pastoral nature, the lamb has long been
symbolic across many cultures UM. And on top of all
of that was a practical reason after the winter, lambs
(20:20):
would have been one of the first animals available to slaughter. UM.
Then bringing this to the United States, UM, there were
huge waves of German, check and Polish immigration to the
US and particularly to the Upper Midwest, starting in the
eighteen twenties and continuing through World War One due to
(20:40):
a number of conflicts going on in Eastern Europe. Uh.
Then a Swedish, Slovak and Italian immigration ramped up after
the American Civil War and continued on. UM and those
who had these lamb related traditions brought them over. By
the way, this is a largely different episode, but lamb
itself is still a pretty popular Easter spring feast meat
(21:06):
choice outside of the United States. Um and was a
more popular meat choice in the US until about World
War Two, after which synthetic fibers began replacing wool and
uh and thus sheep farming became more rare here. Oh
that's interesting. Yeah, that's when the Easter ham began to
(21:29):
really ramp up. That's a tradition, that's what my family. Yeah,
I'm confounded by all of this. Um anyway, um u
UM in an around the mid century. UM Nordic Ware,
the creators of the bunt pan UM. They introduced a
(21:51):
lamb cake mold. It was apparently one of their first
products in the early nineteen fifties. And yeah, just for
for one example, UM, there's this Bavarian family bakery UM
in the Chicago area as well, called called Dinkle's Um
that started producing lamb cakes for Easter when they opened
(22:12):
in n They say that at its peak in the
nineteen seventies, they were selling some twelve thousand lamb cakes
every spring holiday season. Um. They still sell them today,
but apparently only about three hundred or so. Wow. Yeah. Well,
one of the biggest names in terms of butter lambs
is Dorothy Malchetsky mentioned at the top. That's one of
(22:35):
our one of our two numbers that we gave in
the nineteen sixties. Melchetsky debuted her butter lambs in Buffalo,
New York, at a store called the Broadway Market. Uh.
These lambs had a few defining traits. A red ribbon
on their back reading alier how yah, or sometimes it's
like this little tin type thing and a red ribbon
(22:58):
fastened around its neck to present the blood of Christ
as you said, Um, And people had a lot of
nostalgic This was a very nostalgic item from the articles. Yeah,
I love this interesting, I love all of this and
and for serious like, the decorations of these cakes is
(23:21):
gorgeous and bizarre and wonderful. Yes, I'm again that you
have no choice. You have to lick it up. This
is a homework assignment. Yeah, we're giving you. The sheer
range of expressions that can be eked out on these
little lamb cakes is just incredible. It's just really a
(23:44):
sight to behold. It absolutely is. It will change you will.
I love it. It's so wonderful and catchy and um
and and and really right is really nice. I don't know,
I I love I love these like family baking project
kind of things. Yeah, yeah, me too. And again, listeners,
(24:10):
if you have any experience with this, or if you
have any similar things or things that you do for Easter. Um,
my family used to always do the not and nearly
as exciting, but we would do the cupcakes with the
you would put the green shredded coconut and then the
three pastel eminem peanuts on top easter basket. Okay, situation. Yeah,
(24:35):
and they're cute. I that's wonderful. Yeah. So if you
get anything like that, please let us know. We really
really love hearing about that kind of stuff. Um. In
the meanwhile, that's about all that we have to say
(24:57):
about lamb shaped stuff for Easter for now. I don't
want to close this door. Oh, never closed, Never closed, um,
we do have some some male from listeners who have
already written in. But first we've got one more quick
break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
(25:27):
Thank you, sponsoring, Yes, thank you, and we're back with
the snow creepy and yet hopefully somehow kind of cute
involves jelly beans. It involves jelly beans. That sounds I
(25:52):
have a good friend. Uh that could be on her
dating profile. She loves jelly beans. All right, all right, sure,
hi Katie. You know um Amy Route you asked if
it was accurate that instant coffee was so heavily consumed
(26:13):
in Australia and New Zealand. I can't remember the figure
you quoted, but I visited New Zealand for a couple
of weeks in twenty nineteen, and I can confirm that
I was amazed at the ubiquity of instant coffee. Hotels, Airbnb, friends.
We stayed with the only places we found that I
would call good coffee tasty when black was in coffee houses.
(26:35):
Also of note, we had a steep learning curve and
ordering coffee. They don't make drip coffee, only espresso drinks,
so for an American ordering coffee. They automatically made a
long black or an Americano. We couldn't figure out why
anyone would choose instant, but we learned there is a
huge push to only consume food they grow locally. We
(26:56):
went to multiple restaurants who made everything on site absolute incredible.
We expected the breathtaking landscape, but the meals are still
something I dream about. That was longer than expected. And
I'm sure you'll hear from multiple people, but your comment
reminded me of such a lovely time. Maybe I'll bring
myself some instant coffee and look at some picks. You should,
(27:17):
I hope you did. Yeah, I love that. I love that.
I I had the fortune to go to New Zealand,
but I was only there for like a couple of days,
and the food was so good, so good. I don't
remember the coffee. I don't think I was set into
(27:38):
coffee at that point, but just the food. It did
taste very, very fresh, um and even like the kind
of quick items I was impressed with at the time.
That's that's that's wonderful. I've I've not been. Uh, let's go. Yes,
(28:00):
Oh my gosh. Saber goes to New Zealand, that would
be the best we could do that Hobbit tours and
what we do in the shadows. I feel like I've
watched Wellington's Paranormal enough and they named these streets enough
that I'm like, I'm pretty sure this is accurate. I
could get around. But yes, a lot of people, as
(28:21):
we said, run in about instant coffee, so we do
have more instant coffee messages we do in the Meanwhile,
Jesse wrote, when I was in college in the early nineties,
I ran across a phrase from the movie Dune that
got translated into coffee speak that I think you'll appreciate.
It is by caffeine alone, I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed.
(28:44):
The hands begin to shake, the shaking as a warning.
It is by caffeine alone, I set my mind in motion.
If you can find the original sequence from done, it
works really well. Yes, yes, and Jesse followed up at
the clip and it does work very well. Oh, excellent
(29:07):
reading to you, Laura, Oh, thank you, thank you. I
just watched the new Dune movie recently, um, and so
some of my head was kind of in it. Yeah,
you were in the right space. Yeah, that's a great
I mean also, the David Lynch Dune is never that
far from my heart, so I'll never forget. I think
(29:31):
I watched it for the first time right when Quarantine
kind of said it and I was all right, total,
that's what I remember most of because they did the soundtrack. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
oh yeah, it's it's it's a very different it's very
very different take on that property. Um goodness, goodness. Anyways, anyway,
(30:00):
food dude, perhaps that's an episode, but sure, all right
before we get to that. In the meantime, thanks to
both of these listeners for writing in. If you would
like to write to us, you can Our email is
hello at saborpod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
(30:20):
savor pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Sabor is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from My Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope them lots more good things are coming your way,
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.