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Povitica, an Eastern European Dessert Bread

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I have joined Daring Kitchen from this month on. I am always keen on learning anything new and baking is my current passion. So what better way to roll up my sleeves and get all set to bake a challenging recipe.

The daring baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of the Gingered whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat.

Povitica (poh-vee-TEET-sah ) is  sweat or savory yeast bread of Croatian origin. It is typically served at special occasions like weddings, birthdays and holidays. A sweetened dough is made which is rolled paper thin and slathered with a filling and then rolled again and baked. Although walnut is the most traditional filling, other fillings can also be used like peaches, apple, apple and raisins, chocolate, strawberry jam etc. The end result is beautifully patterned slices when cut.

This bread looks something similar to the Chocolate and Orange Marble Loaf Cake.

The original recipe made 4 loaves of bread, but as I was baking it for the first time, I was a little apprehensive. But Jenni was very generous to provide a halved recipe and even a quartered recipe. Quartered recipe made one loaf , so I was a happy girl. Even if something goes wrong with the first loaf, i’ll still have my chance.

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Povitica, an Eastern European Dessert Bread

Course Dessert
Cuisine European
Author Neha Mathur

Ingredients

  • To activate the yeast
  • Sugar-12 tsp
  • All purpose flour-14 tsp
  • Warm water- 2tbsp
  • Dry yeast-112 tsp
  • For the dough
  • Whole milk-12 cup
  • Sugar-3 tbsp
  • Egg-1
  • Salt-34 tsp
  • Unsalted butter-1 tbsp {melted }
  • All purpose flour-2 cups {sifted }
  • Topping
  • Milk-2 tbsp
  • Filling ingredients
  • Ground walnuts-134 cups
  • Whole milk-14 cup
  • Unsalted butter-14 cup
  • Egg yolk-1{beaten }
  • Vanilla extract-14 tsp
  • Sugar-12cup
  • Unsweetened cocoa powder-14 tsp
  • Cinnamon powder-14 tsp

Instructions

  1. To activate yeast
  2. In a small bowl, stir together sugar, flour and yeast into warm water and cover and keep aside for 5 minutes
  3. To make the dough
  4. In a pan, heat the milk just below the boiling point
  5. Keep stirring
  6. Cool a bit
  7. In a bowl, mix milk with sugar and salt
  8. Add egg, yeast mixture, melted butter and 14 cups of flour
  9. Mix nicely and continue adding flour till a soft dough is formed
  10. Turn the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for 3- 4 minutes
  11. Keep the dough in a covered oiled bowl for one and half hours in a warm place , till it doubles in size
  12. To make the filling
  13. Ground the walnuts in a blender
  14. Mix , ground walnuts, sugar, cocoa powder and cinnamon powder
  15. Heat milk and butter to boiling
  16. Add in the walnut mixture
  17. Add the egg and vanilla and mix thoroughly
  18. To roll and assemble the dough
  19. Spread a plastic sheet on top of the working surface
  20. Sprinkle little flour on the sheet
  21. Roll the dough on this sheet, as thin as you can without tearing the dough {I teared mine at a few places 🙁 }
  22. Spread 1 tbsp of butter on the rolled dough
  23. Spread the filling on the rolled dough evenly
  24. Lift the edge of the dough and roll it gently into a long roll
  25. Place the dough roll into the greased pan in the shape of a U
  26. Brush the top with milk
  27. Cover the pan with a plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 15 minutes
  28. Pre heat the oven to350 degrees
  29. After 15 minutes, remove the plastic wrap from the pan and bake the bread for 15 minutes at 350 degrees
  30. Lower the oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake for another 40-45 minutes
  31. Remove bread from the oven and brush with melted butter
  32. Let it rest in the pan for 20 minutes
  33. Remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack

 

 

This is definitely a beautifully baked loaf with a surprise inside. When the slices of this loaf were cut, there were beautiful patterns inside. The bread was very soft to eat and the flavor of the filling was phenomenal.

Lining to YeastSpotting

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Comments

  1. sangee vijay

    October 27, 2011 at 6:40 pm

    Congrats Neha..the way to go gal…keep rocking
    povitica is new to me but looks so yummy and tempting…well done dear !!!
    Just to let u know that my blog title was changed to “Spicy Treats” (before it was Typical Indian Cooking)

    Reply

  21. anchan

    October 29, 2011 at 11:58 am

    Oh, that looks so delicious! So dangerous to have that bread in the house, I wouldn’t be able to resist going back for another slice! 😉

    Reply

  22. schmetterlingwords

    October 29, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    Ooooh oooh oooh…. What a lovely roll… You have got it absolutely great Neha. The pics look adorable and I wish I was there to have at least two slices… Keep rocking with Daring bakers in future too 🙂

    Reply

  24. Lecker and Yummy recipes

    December 6, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    wow Neha, iam totally wowed with this bread ! well shaped, perfectly baked, wonderfully presented and stunningly photographed !! went thru ur collection of baked goodies….not exxagerating u see, to be a very good baker !!! love to follow ur recipes…..

    Reply

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