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Urmašice with walnut centres, ridged dough and lemon sugar syrup
Urmašice, also widely called hurmašice, are recognized less by one fixed dough formula than by their ridged shape and their capacity to absorb sugar syrup without collapsing. This version uses an oil-and-milk dough with a small amount of semolina and a walnut centre. Each piece is pressed against a grater before baking, creating channels that brown quickly and later catch the syrup.
The dough should be soft but self-supporting. Too much extra flour makes the baked shell dense and slows syrup penetration; a dough that is too loose loses the grater pattern. Mixing the dry ingredients first distributes the baking powder and semolina evenly, while combining oil, milk and sugars separately prevents pockets of unblended sugar in the finished pastry.
Size consistency matters because the batch is baked and soaked together. Thirty similar pieces will colour at roughly the same pace and take up syrup at a comparable rate. The walnut should sit inside the dough rather than protrude through the seam, where it can create a channel for syrup to escape or the pastry to split.
The syrup is intentionally brief: seven minutes after boiling with a small amount of lemon juice. It should remain pourable. A highly reduced syrup sits on the surface and can candy before reaching the centre. Here the baked pastries cool first, while the syrup rests only briefly off the heat; that temperature difference encourages gradual uptake without turning the outside immediately pasty.
After soaking, the pastries need time at 4 °C for the moisture to equalize. A properly soaked urmašica feels heavier than it did from the oven, holds its ridged outline and has no dry floury core. The texture is tender and syrup-rich, with a distinct walnut centre rather than a loose nut filling.