Povitica: Croatian Sweet Bread

When I say "Croatian food," what do you think of?

Come on, give it your best shot.

Seriously, just think of something.

Still nothing?

No?

Same here, until I stumbled upon this lovely little recipe from The Daring Kitchen. Povitica (pronounced "po-va-teet-sa") is a delicious Croatian/Eastern European sweet bread that, after being baked and sliced, has a beautiful swirly pattern. The ladies over at The Daring Kitchen say that povitica is traditionally served around the holiday season. But in my opinion, this stuff should be served all day, every day.

Because this is America, and that's what we do.

The "swirls" are very thin layers of walnuts pieces, cinnamon, cocoa, and vanilla. Did I hear you say "OMG YUM?" I thought so.

I used the very sized down version of the recipe because, well, I couldn't find a reason we needed eight loaves of povitica.

Povitica (Croation Sweet Bread)

Ingredients:
For activating the yeast:

• ½ tsp sugar
• ¼ tsp all-purpose flour
• 2 T warm water
• 1½ tsp dry yeast

For the dough:

• ½ c milk (I used skim)
• 3 T sugar
• ¾ tsp salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 T unsalted butter, melted
• 2 c. all-purpose flour

For the topping:

• 2 T strong coffee, cooled
• 1½ tsp sugar
• Melted butter

For the filling:

• 1¾ c. finely chopped walnuts
• ¼ c. milk
• ¼ c. unsalted butter
• 1 egg yolk, beaten
• ¼ tsp vanilla extract
• ½ c. sugar
• ¼ tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• ¼ tsp cinnamon

 
Steps:

For the yeast:
1. In a small bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, and yeast into the warm water and let those ingredients hang out for about five minutes. It'll get all nice and bubbly.

For the dough:
1. In a pot, heat the milk just until it begins to boil, stirring constantly. Pull off the heat and let stand for a minute to cool.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the scalded milk, the sugar, and the salt.
3. Add the beaten egg, yeast mixture, melted butter, and 1 cup flour. Mix well.
4. Add the rest of the flour, mixing until it forms a soft, sticky dough.
5. Turn the dough out onto floured surface and knead, adding flour as you go, until the dough forms a nice, smooth, not sticky ball.
6. Place dough into greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm area protected from breezes until doubled in size, about an hour and a half.

To Make the Filling
1. Mix together the walnuts, sugar, cinnamon, and cocoa in a bowl
2. In a sauce pot, heat the milk and butter to boiling.
3. Pour the milk and butter mixture over the nut and sugar mixture.
4. Add the egg yolk and vanilla and mix well.
5. Let the mixture cool down to room temperature.

For the dough:
1. Spread wax paper or a silicone baking sheet on your counter and sprinkled with a little flour so that your dough won't stick.
2. Roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin, starting in the middle and working your way out, until it is about 10 inches in diameter. You want your dough to be so thin you can see your counter through it.
3. Brush a little melted butter over the dough.

4. Spread the filling evenly over dough until covered.
5. Lift the edge of the wax paper or silicone baking sheet and gently roll the dough like a jelly roll.
6. Once you roll the dough up so it forms a thick rope, carefully put it into a greased loaf pan in the shape of a “U." Then coil the dough around itself, as this will give the dough its "swirly" look when sliced.
7. Brush the top of the loaf with the coffee and sugar mixture.
8. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and let the loaf rest for 10-15 minutes, you know, to gather its thoughts.
9. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
10. Take off the plastic wrap and bake the loaf for 15 minutes.
11. Then turn down the oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake for 45 minutes.
12. Remove bread from oven and brush with melted butter.
13. Remove pan from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for 20-30 minutes. Don't take the bread out of the loaf pan until it's cooled!


Enjoy the swirly deliciousness!