One of my absolute favorite memories of Christmas (and Easter) as a child was the povitica we'd enjoy for breakfast that morning. It's a Croatian nut bread that's rich, flaky, and chock-a-bock full of walnuts. Don't ask for the recipe - family secrets, right? - but here's a general overview of the process.
The bread is similar to what you'd use to make cinnamon rolls - eggs, milk, butter, and sugar combine to make a heavy dough that's a gorgeous yellow color. While its doing the first rise you mix up the filling - walnuts, sugar, milk, butter (I mentioned this is a richly flavored special occasion treat, right?).
Stretching the dough as thin as you can is the tough part. My gran (mom's mom, the Radke side of my family tree) is so great at getting it paper thin. I'll never understand how. She literally stretched it the size of her kitchen table. Seriously. Stop reading for a second and think about the size of your table. One loaf of dough, that large, is thin enough to see through. Will I ever have the patience (or a warm enough home?!?) to accomplish that feat?
Spread on some filling, roll it up, then loop the two ends around the middle (creating a three sided mass of oozy goodness). Quickly slide into a buttered loaf pan and let rise a second time. Bake for about an hour, let cool in the pans about 5 minutes, then gently slip them out to cool on racks.
To serve, slice as gently as possible, toast in the oven just until warm, then put a sliver of butter on top. Seriously - more butter. A cup of coffee or a glass of milk makes this a wonderful holiday treat - and well worth the two-a-day workouts I'll be enjoying this weekend!
Side note - when I was in Croatia last year I was pleased to see that their povitica was as thin (ie thick!) as mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment