Ćupter

Ingredients:

• 5 l of white wine must
• 1 kg of flour
• 10 dag of sugar
• powdered sugar
• walnuts for sprinkling

Preparation:

Leave exactly 5 liters of fat (must) from white wine for 2-3 hours to settle. Strain it and cook it on high heat until it boils and foams. After that reduce the heat. At the same time, 1 liter of cold must is mixed with a whisk with 1 kg of flour and 10 dag of sugar. The mixture obtained in this way is slowly added to the must, which is cooked until the pulp thickens like a mixture for pancakes. Then pour into plates that you have coated with fresh must and leave to dry for 5-6 days in an air-dry room, turning every day. When all the choppers have dried, sprinkle them with powdered sugar and decorate with walnuts.

Serving:

It is most often eaten as a dessert together with almonds, walnuts and dried figs and is an indispensable part of the table in many Herzegovinian houses. It is cut into strips or desired shapes and served.

Interesting facts about the dessert:

Ćupter is a type of gelatinous dessert that is obtained by reducing (boiling) grape juice from our autochthonous Žilavka and Blatina varieties. It comes in a round form, which is where its name comes from the Persian word round. There are also written evidences about making khuptera in the past. Evlija Celebija, who visited our region in the 1660s, wrote in his travelogues that “in Bosnia and Herzegovina, even in Sarajevo, čupter, a type of grape jelly, was made from boiled must. The Franciscan Ivan Frano Jukić wrote in the book Geography and history of Bosnia: “Once upon a time in Brotnje, during the grape harvest, almost every household made a ćupter and later enjoyed it with brandy and dried fruit, or welcomed guests with this dessert.” For Christmas, the obligatory thing on the table had to be cut ćupter with almonds, walnuts, raisins and figs.”