| Place the dough in a greased banitsa pan, starting in the middle and spiralling out, pressing the coils into the spiral shape towards the edge of the pan, baking as above. |
| On this day Bulgarians put inside each slice of the banitsa small cornel tree branches with different number of buds on them, as a lucky sign for the people sharing the meal. |
| For Christmas or New Year's, fortunes in the form of coins, cornel cherry twigs, or slips of paper are inserted in banitsa or bread. |
| We sit and drink rakia and soft drinks and over two or three hours share a large dish of potato salad, followed by home-made soup and pumpkin banitsa. |
| This Saturday some of the ladies of the village, dressed in traditional clothes, offered aryian, rakia, banitsa and posies of flowers. |
