Potica english recipe
Potica is a sweet bread with nut filling from Slovenija
Traditionally potica would be made at Easter and Christmas.
This is no ordinary pastry, but with some practice it can become your favourite dessert. Not just because of the taste, also because it is really fun to make and it looks great.
Most recepies will tell you some of the basic ingredients you have to use and how to use them.
But it is more fun if you make it your own way. I have always felt that once I have my own potica recipe, I will be old and wise. So here it is 🙂
Potica dough
Ingredients:
500 gram of white flour
60 gram fresh butter
50 gram of sugar
4 egg yolks or 2 whole eggs
some vanilla flavour
3 cl brown rum
some grated lemon zest
45 mg fresh yeast, 10 gram of sugar and 2,5 dl of lukewarm milk – it takes about 3 minutes to make a foamy mix.
mix well by hand or with a dough mixer.
Mix the dough until it becomes nice and soft and can be made into a nice ball.
Put it on some baking paper and cover with a bowl.
Leave for several minutes, until it rises to about twice its original size.
It is said that you should not let the dought ‘catch cold’, that the entire procedure should be done in a nice warm place. I have never had any trouble even if the doors were wide open in the winter for a while and the kitchen would get cold. So you really do not need to worry about that.
While the dough is rising, prepare the filling.
600 gram ground hazelnuts
a spoon or two of chocolate powder
1,25 dl of fresh cream
1 or 2 eggs, whisk them well
20 gram of butter
200 gram of suggar
some vanilla flavour
rum
Now spread the dough nice and evenly.
I use two sheets of baking paper. This makes it really easy.
You will need to figure out how long the dough needs to be so that it will fit perfectly into your model. You probably do not have the original potica model, but you can use your bread model, even if it is not round in shape.
Spread the filling evenly
The filling can be made of other ground nuts, such as wallnuts, or you can use coconut or some other filling. Just make sure it is not too runny – it should be quite thick, so that you need to put some work into spreading it evenly over the entire dough.
Roll the dough
Rolling the dough is the most fun part – use your fingers, do it slowly and try to put even preassure over the entire length of the dough. Do it gently but firmly.
Put potica into a model
Again make sure the dough is just long enough for your model. If it is too short, you are in trouble :), if it is too long, no problem, just cut some of it off at the edges.
If you are using a round model as I am, just put the two sides of the dough together as nicely as you can. The dough still needs to grow a little, so it will grow together nicely.
Grow a bit and bake
Now it is time you make some nice holes into your potica to make it bake more evenly. Just use a wooden stick or tooth pick and make several even holes.
Cover your potica and leave it to rest for several minutes, so it can still grow a little.
Bake at 180 Celsius for about one hour.
Turn upside down
Once potica is baked, tale it out of the owen and leave it in the model to cool off a bit. You can cover it with a cloth.
Then just turn it upside down on a plate, leave to cool and put just a little sprinkle of powder sugar on it.
Now you can enjoy your potica right away or store it for quite a while. Keep it in a covered container. It will stay nice for a longer period if you store it in the refrigerator. You can even freeze it to use when you need a special treat as it will not take long to be ready to eat after you take it out of the freezer.
Enjoy!
My dear friend from Trinidad sent me pictures of her first wallnut potica she made. I am so gratefull and proud. Thank you so much for doing this and for sending me proof that potica can rise well also in Trinidad.
