What Are Kūčiukai? Lithuanian Christmas Eve Biscuits

Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the ingredients and techniques behind Eastern European cooking.

A biscuit named after its holiday

Kūčiukai are small, hard biscuits made from a leavened wheat dough with poppy seeds. They’re baked for Kūčios, the Lithuanian Christmas Eve supper on December 24, and also go by šližikai or prėskutė; across Lithuania they have nearly thirty names. The name comes from the holiday: kūčiukai derives from kūčia, or from Kūčios itself. They’re a strictly seasonal food. Shops stock them as Christmas approaches, and once the holiday is over they disappear until the next December.

From grain dish to biscuit

The biscuit is the younger part of the story. Kūčia, the older Christmas Eve dish, was a mixture of boiled grains, and only later did kūčiukai take its place on most tables. The first recorded kūčiukai recipe called for a stiff dough boiled in water and milk; today they are baked. Our traditional kūčiukai recipe follows the modern form: dough rolled into thin ropes and cut into pieces about a centimetre long.

Bread for the ancestors

In Lithuanian ethnology, a kūčiukas is a symbolic little loaf of bread meant for the souls of ancestors, and a century ago the biscuits were very plain, because they were fasting food. They are also known as “the bread of ghosts” and “the bread of the Last Supper.” The same idea sits behind the empty place at the Kūčios table, kept for a family member who died that year or could not come, and behind the old custom of leaving the food on the table overnight for returning souls.

Poppy milk and the rest of the table

Kūčiukai are eaten dry or with aguonų pienas, poppy milk: soaked poppy seeds crushed or blended until a white liquid forms, thinned with water, strained and sweetened. The older custom was to drop the biscuits into the drink and eat them from a bowl with a spoon. Cranberry kissel is the other traditional partner. Poppy seeds also go into Ukrainian kutia, so the seed turns up on more than one Christmas Eve table in the region.

Kūčios is a fast: traditionally twelve dishes, with no meat or dairy. A simple kūčiukai dough fits without adjustment: flour, water, yeast, sugar, oil and poppy seeds. Some recipes enrich it with butter or sour cream, and many now use baking powder instead of yeast, though the yeasted dough is the more traditional one. Beside the biscuits you will find herring and mushroom soup. The full menu is gathered in our Kūčios recipes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are kūčiukai?

Kūčiukai are small, hard biscuits made from a leavened wheat dough with poppy seeds, baked for Kūčios, the Lithuanian Christmas Eve supper on December 24. They are usually eaten with poppy milk.

What do kūčiukai symbolize?

In Lithuanian ethnology, a kūčiukas is a symbolic little loaf of bread meant for the souls of ancestors. They are also called “the bread of ghosts” and “the bread of the Last Supper.”

What is poppy milk?

Poppy milk, aguonų pienas, is made by soaking poppy seeds, crushing or blending them until a white liquid forms, thinning it with water, straining it and sweetening it with honey or sugar. It is the usual partner of kūčiukai at Kūčios.

Are kūčiukai vegan?

The biscuits can be: a simple dough needs only flour, water, yeast, sugar, oil and poppy seeds, with no butter, eggs or milk. Poppy milk sweetened with honey is not strictly vegan unless the honey is swapped for sugar or maple syrup.

What is the difference between kūčiukai and kūčia?

Kūčia is the older Christmas Eve dish, a mixture of boiled grains. Kūčiukai, the small baked poppy seed biscuits, later took its place on most tables.

What Are Kūčiukai? The Tiny Poppy Seed Biscuits of Lithuanian Christmas Eve