5 years ago I baked my
first kind of Povitica. We visited Peter’s daughter, Nieke and her husband
Miron and our granddaughter Stella (now she has a sister Emma). There we met Visnja, Nieke’s Croatian mother
in law. We talked about baking bread and she told me about Povitica
(poh-vee-TEET-sah) Croatian walnut bread. She told me that her father loved this
bread, but her mother couldn't bake it. I told her I would (try to) bake it for
them. Because we can’t give them the real bread, since they are in Holland and
we are here in Thailand we will share it with friends. This way, more people
will enjoy this Croatian Povitica. Povitica means "to roll"
or "to wrap".
My first Povitica was NOT a success. 5 years ago I could find 1 recipe on Internet. The recipe was not clear and I had no idea how Povitica should look like. Today it's completely different. Internet is filled with recipes for Povitica. It was on tv too. The contestants of The British Bake Off baked it. I used Paul Hollywood's recipe and it worked good for me.
Today I made it again. Next
month we are going to the Netherlands again to visit our family and friends.
Thinking of them helped me to choose bread to bake for Bread Baking Day #81 with
the theme: Breads from all over the world. Sandra of Snuggs
Kitchen is the lovely host for this month's BBD.
Povitica, this sweet or
savory pastry is made with yeast-raised dough that is rolled or stretched out
thinly and then spread with a filling. It is then rolled up jellyroll-style and
baked variously as a log, in a crescent shape, in a loaf pan or in a Bundt
pan.
Finely ground walnuts
sweetened with honey or sugar is the traditional filling and that's why many
people refer to these pastries as nut rolls.
It's delicious, festive
looking, great smelling and ready to eat bread. And it's really fun to make. I
will make this again.
(*) I followed Paul's
recipe, except for the sugar. I try to avoid sugar. But baking sweet bread asks
for sugar or a sweet substitute. I grounded granulated organic sugar for the
dough, because the size of the granules has an effect on the dough and the
outcome of the bread. Since this doesn't apply for the filling I used natural
sugar. In Thailand we have a lot of coconut sugar and cane sugar. I'm not saying
this is better or healthy sugar. It's still sugar, but for me less bad then refined
sugar.
