What is a Licitar Heart?
Licitarska srca, or in English licitar hearts, are handmade heart-shaped biscuits crafted from an edible, sweet honey dough. They are decorated with swirls and flower designs; they can have written messages on them, such as “Merry Christmas” or “I love you”; and they will typically have a little mirror at the center of each design to symbolize that the receiver is in the giver's heart. Some licitar hearts come in other colors like yellow or white, but traditionally they are red. More generally, licitars can come in a variety of other shapes such as birds, trees, flowers, and umbrellas, but the hearts are by far the most popular style.

The name licitar is derived from the German/Austrian word Lebkuchen/Lebzelter meaning gingerbread. However, licitar dough does not actually contain ginger.

The licitar tradition has existed in Europe since the Middle Ages (16th and 17th centuries) when nuns of various European convents were using wooden molds to create elaborate cakes. This cake-making became more of a craft as it gradually spread from the Eastern Alps to Central Europe. When it arrived to northwestern Croatia (the Hrvatsko Zagorje and Zagreb areas), the people put their own local twist on it with the red glaze and a different style of decorating. Since then, the licitar heart has become an iconic symbol of Zagreb and the Croatian culture, protected by the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage as of 2009.

Who Makes Licitar hearts?
Medičari are what you call the people who make licitars. Medičari were held in high regards for their craftsmanship during the 18th and 19th centuries. They produced many different products, including licitars, cakes, candles, and mead. To this day you can still find such products in Croatia, especially during festivals and fairs, and if you're lucky, you might even meet some modern-day medičari working for the Licitar design studio in Zagreb (http://licitar.hr/en). Licitar, a manufacturer of Croatian decorations and souvenirs, strives to preserve the artisan tradition by making their all of their products using the original methods of production. They even hold workshops and presentations from time to time for people who are interested in learning more about their crafts. However, the original licitar recipe is a well-guarded family secret passed from one generation to the next. Even to this very day, only a select group of people are privileged with the knowledge of making licitars the original way.

How Do You Make Them?
Medičari must have patience when crafting licitar hearts. The process takes about a month due to the time needed for the biscuits to dry out. The licitar dough needs to sit for days before it is firm enough to mold or cut into the desired shapes for baking. After the Licitars have been baked, They must then be left out to dry for about two weeks before they can be colored. As soon as they are completely dried out, the biscuits are then paired up back-to-back and a string is placed between them. Next they are glued together with a special flour paste mixture. After a little drying, the licitar hearts are dunked into a special red dye made of sugar, honey, bee's wax, natural red coloring, and possibly some other ingredients that medičari prefer to keep secret. Then, they are allowed to dry yet another two weeks before they are finally able to be decorated with a special type of icing.

For those of you who are into DIY crafts, the Zagreb County Tourist Board has published a Licitar recipe that only takes about a week to make. It can be found on the following blog in English: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]



What is Their Purpose?
As the ingredients are all edible, you could make licitar hearts to eat instead if you aren't patient enough to go through the month-long construction process. However, in Croatia, people prefer to gift them to their loved ones on various special occasions or use them to decorate during the holidays. Traditionally, a young man would give a licitar heart to the girl he was in love with and would say something like “Pogledaj koga imam u svom srcu!” (“Take a look at who is in my heart!”) as he presented it to her in a way that allowed her to see her reflection in the little mirror at the center of the heart.

Licitar hearts make excellent Christmas ornaments! The Chrismas tree on the Ban Jelačić square in Zagreb is adorned with thousands of them throughout December.

Speaking of Zagreb, licitar hearts are very popular souvenirs there! They are sold in many shops, at the farmer's market Dolac, and at different booths during the Christmas fair. During the warmer parts of the year, you might even run into a girl carrying around a basket full of licitar hearts for sale in the upper part of town. She wears the traditional costume of the village Šestina and has her hair separated into two braids to reflect how unmarried women traditionally wore their hair.

~~~Activity: Spread the Licitar Love~~~

It is time for us to spread the licitar love by decorating our own licitar hearts! You might be wondering how exactly we will be doing this...Well, since we don't have a month to bake real licitar hearts, our second best option is to decorate a digital template! XD


Notes:
All participants in this activity will get a lovely licitar-themed bumper and signature!

The decorating is totally up to you! If you're feeling more purple than red, then make the base color of the heart purple! Like the color green better? Not a problem! You may decorate them with any colors or designs you wish!

If you are not able to color it on the computer don't fret! You can always print it out, color it, and then scan or take a picture of what you come up with!

The PSD version is here in case anybody needs it: PSD Version

Please post your licitar heart to this thread, so that our fellow members can enjoy your lovely creation and so that you can receive your participation bumper and signature after the fair.

P.S. you could even gift your creation to one of your friends here on GC or in your town to show them how much you care!

Here's mine! I haven't played around this much in MS paint since I was a kid!

Wow! It turned out so pretty! It makes me want to participate in my own activity lmao! I'm glad you enjoyed yourself in MS paint. I'm sure it brought back a lot of nostalgia!

You'll get your participation bumper and signature after the fair. I didn't want to bombard Gemma with too many graphics requests at the same time as everybody else.

I made mine sparkly~

Ooooooh. I like the bubbles frosting.

WHOOOOA THAT'S CUTE

Eidolune wrote:

I made mine sparkly~

Wow! I like the little bubbles! They remind me of those sugar pearls that people sometimes put on cakes.

Moonstone wrote:

It is supposed to say "World Fair 2016" in Croatian, but it may be a little off since I used a translator.

What you put is correct!

:O BTW, I love the gradient!