Czech Wallachian Frgál with Blueberries

Imagine the biggest kolache you have ever seen: a thin yeasted crust, a thick layer of fruit, and a blanket of buttery streusel on top. That is frgál, the pride of Valašsko (Wallachia), a hilly region in eastern Moravia. Some of my American readers call it a sweet pizza pie, and the name fits better than you might think.

What is Wallachian frgál? Frgál is a large, round Czech pastry: a yeast dough rolled out thin, about 12 inches (30 cm) across, spread with one sweet generous filling, in this case blueberries, sprinkled with streusel, and brushed with melted butter and rum the moment it comes out of the oven.

Making frgál takes about 2.5 hours, including rising time. Czechs cut frgál into wedges and serve it with coffee. I come from Bohemia, while frgál is a Moravian specialty, so I bake it whenever I want to change up my usual round of traditional kolaches. By now I roll out that thin dough with complete confidence, and once you learn the technique, it does not matter which filling you put on top.

Jump to

• ➜ Two tips on this recipe
• ➜ The story behind Wallachian frgál
• Czech pronunciation
• ➜ Ingredients you will need
• Equipment
• ➜ How to make Wallachian frgál
• ➜ Traditional frgál fillings
• ➜ How to serve Wallachian frgál
• ➜ How to store frgál
• ➜ FAQ
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

➜ Two tips on this recipe

• Roll the dough thin, but not paper-thin as you would for stretched strudel dough. For frgál, it needs to support a heavy layer of fruit, so if you can see the countertop through the dough, it is too thin and may tear or bend.
• Brush the hot frgál with the butter and rum mixture as soon as it comes out of the oven. This is not just for flavor: the mixture soaks into the crust, adds a rich buttery aroma, and helps keep the frgál fresh longer.

" I am from Wallachia and frgál with fresh blueberries is the best one."

Pavlína

Frgál began as a festive bake, and in the Czech Republic, especially in Moravia, you find it all year round at bakeries, fairs, and folklore festivals. If you live abroad, it is also a lovely way to share your Czech roots when friends are coming over and you want to put something truly Czech on the table. If you enjoy Czech yeasted pastries, try the round double-filled Moravian kolaches (moravské koláče), their folded cousins tied kolaches (šátečky), or a rectangular blueberry yeast coffee cake next.

➜ The story behind Wallachian frgál

Like more than one famous dish, frgál started as an insult. In the Wallachian dialect, frgál was the word for a botched vdolek (a round, flat yeasted pastry): one that tore, spilled its filling, or fell on the way to the oven. Old-timers remembered that no baker wanted to hear her pastries called frgály. Other nicknames are friendlier: lopaťák, from lopata (a shovel), because the pastry is as big as one, and pecák, from pec, the wood-fired oven it was baked in.

The first written mention of frgál dates back to 1826. The Wallachian vdolek then stepped into the spotlight at the Ethnographic Exhibition in Prague in 1895, and during the first half of the 20th century it moved from farm kitchens into bakeries across Wallachia. By the end of the century, the once-mocking name frgál had stuck, and the pastry had won over the whole country.

Since 2013, Wallachian frgál has been protected by the European Union as a regional specialty with strict rules: a certified frgál measures 12 to 12.5 inches (30 to 32 cm) across, stands no taller than ¾ inch (2 cm), and the filling makes up 42 to 48 percent of the whole pastry. In other words, almost half of every bite is filling.

My favorite piece of frgál lore comes from the village of Nový Hrozenkov, where housewives once baked a special strakatý frgál (a "spotted frgál") decorated with dabs of every filling in the house. It was not for the family: it went to the cows on Christmas Eve, so they would give birth to spotted calves.

When Moravians emigrated to America in the 1800s, many settled in Texas, where their descendants keep the baking tradition alive. One of my readers remembered picking wild dewberries for her mom's pizza kolaches by the Texas railroad tracks, wearing boots and long sleeves, with a snake stick to beat the grass.

➜ Ingredients you will need

✅ See the recipe below with step-by-step photos and many helpful tips. Scroll down for the full printable recipe in both US cups and metric measurements.

• All-purpose flour, the base of the dough and the streusel. In the Czech Republic I bake frgál with hladká mouka; all-purpose flour is the right match abroad.
• Active dry yeast, the leavening. Frgál dough is rich with butter, so it needs a full and lively rise.
• Milk, lukewarm, to wake the yeast up.
• Unsalted butter, three times over: melted into the dough, rubbed into the streusel, and mixed with rum for the final glaze.
• Egg yolk, to enrich the dough. You will also need one whole beaten egg for brushing the rim before baking.
• Granulated sugar, for the dough, streusel and over the blueberries.
• Lemon zest, grated fresh.
• Blueberries, the star of this frgál. Czech forests are full of borůvky, which are in fact European bilberries: smaller, darker, and tarter than cultivated blueberries, with a juice that stains your teeth purple. Store-bought blueberries work beautifully, they are just milder and sweeter, so taste before you add the sugar.
• Plain breadcrumbs, a thin layer under the berries that soaks up their juice.
• Streusel (posypka, as it is called in Wallachia), a simple mix of flour, butter, and sugar.
• Spiced rum, for the signature glaze. Czechs use tuzemák, our spiced-rum-style spirit; abroad, reach for Austrian Stroh or a spiced rum like Kirkland brand.

➜ How to make Wallachian frgál

STEP 1: Activate the yeast. Pour ¼ cup of the lukewarm milk into a small bowl, stir in 1 teaspoon of the sugar and the yeast, and set the glass in a warm, draft-free spot for 10 to 15 minutes, until foamy.

Lukewarm means a drop on your wrist feels barely warm; yeast is a living thing, and anything hot would kill it. It is worth checking the expiration date on the yeast before you start.

STEP 2: Mix the wet ingredients. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and take it off the heat to cool a bit. Pour in the remaining milk, which cools the butter down. The mixture must not be hot; lukewarm or even nearly cool is fine, only heat can harm the yeast. Whisk in the egg yolk.

STEP 3: Mix the dry ingredients. Put the flour, powdered sugar, salt, and lemon zest into a large bowl and stir them together by hand.

STEP 4: Bring the dough together and knead. Make a well in the middle of the flour, pour in the foamy yeast and the wet mixture, and combine roughly with a fork.

There are three common ways to knead the dough, and a stand mixer is the easiest. With the dough hook, run the mixer on the lowest speed for 1 to 2 minutes, then on medium-low for about 8 minutes. The heritage way is to beat the dough in the bowl with a wooden spoon (vařečka) until it no longer sticks to the spoon and small blisters appear on the surface. Kneading by hand takes about 10 minutes on a floured board.

Whichever way you choose, the dough is ready when it is smooth, elastic, and sticks to your fingers only a little. It should stay soft and slightly tacky, not runny.

A flexible plastic dough scraper (affiliate link) is the best tool for handling the dough.

STEP 5: Let the dough rise. Cover the bowl and leave it in a warm, draft-free place for about 1 and ½ hours, until doubled; frgál dough is rich with butter, so it rises slower than a lean dough.

If your kitchen is air-conditioned and cool, use an enclosed spot, or try my trick for letting dough rise in the oven.

STEP 6: Make the streusel while the dough rises. Put the flour, sugar, and butter in a bowl, then rub the mixture between your fingers until crumbs form. Keep the streusel in the refrigerator until you need it; it firms up nicely in the cold.

STEP 7: Divide and rest. Turn the risen dough out onto a floured board, knead it briefly, and split it into two equal buns. Shape each into a ball, seam-side down. Cover them with a towel and let them rest for about 15 minutes.

STEP 8: Roll out the dough. Cut a piece of parchment paper into a circle about 12.5 inches (32 cm) across; the round paper will guide you to a round frgál. Grease the parchment paper with a little butter and sprinkle it lightly with flour.

Place one ball of dough on the parchment and roll it out to a circle about 12 inches (30 cm), staying just inside the paper's edge, thin but still sturdy. Help yourself with your fingers (my favorite method) to shape the edge into an even round.

Shape a low rim about ½ inch (1 cm) high around the edge, then brush it with the beaten egg.

STEP 9: Fill and top. Sprinkle half the breadcrumbs thinly over the dough. Spread the blueberries on top, starting at the rim and working toward the center. Sprinkle them with sugar to taste; about 2 Tablespoons per frgál is usually right, less if your berries are sweet. Cover the fruit generously with streusel and let the frgál rest for 15 minutes while the oven preheats.

STEP 10: Bake. Carefuly slide the frgál, still on its parchment, onto a baking sheet. Bake at 380 °F (190 °C) for about 20 minutes.

After about 12 minutes, lift the edge with a spatula and check that the bottom is coloring. The center bakes slower than the rim because of the thick filling, so if the edges brown too quickly, cover the frgál loosely with aluminum foil.

STEP 11: Splash with butter and rum. While the frgál bakes, melt the butter in a small pot and stir in the rum. The moment the frgál comes out of the oven, brush or splash the hot surface with about half the mixture, rim and center alike.

Then roll out, fill, and bake the second frgál the same way.

➜ Traditional frgál fillings

• Dried pear filling, the oldest and best-known. Ground dried pears, never fresh ones, which hold too much water; the filling is dark, dense, and honeyed.
• Tvaroh filling, creamy and gently sweet. My tvaroh cheese filling recipe works for frgál without any changes.
• Poppy seed filling, ground poppy seeds cooked in milk; follow this poppy seed filling recipe.
• Plum butter filling, thick and tangy; here is my plum butter filling (povidlová náplň).
• Sweet cabbage filling, a surprise for most non-Czechs; my sweet cabbage filling comes from the same vintage tradition. Wallachian bakers also fill frgál with ground walnuts, grated carrot, and once upon a time even potatoes!

If frgál has won you over, try Chodské koláče next: a western Bohemian relative of frgál. Chodské koláče are made in much the same way and are about the same size, but they are famous for their decorated tops, with several fillings arranged in beautiful patterns.

➜ How to serve Wallachian frgál

Serve frgál at room temperature. It needs no plate dressing: no whipped cream, no dusting of sugar, the butter and rum glaze is the finish.

At markets you can even buy a mixed frgál, assembled from differently filled wedges, so nobody has to choose just one filling. Dobrou chuť!

➜ How to store frgál

• At room temperature: frgál tastes best within the first 2 days. Keep it covered so it does not dry out.
• In the refrigerator: wrapped or in an airtight container, frgál keeps for about 5 more days.
• Freezer: frgál freezes very well; certified Wallachian bakeries store it frozen for up to 9 months. Wrap the whole frgál or individual wedges tightly before freezing.
• Thawing: let frgál thaw slowly at room temperature, never in the microwave, and enjoy it within a day of thawing.

➜ FAQ

📖 Recipe