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If you’re looking to impress your friends or just want to treat yourself to something delicious, you’ve found the perfect recipe: Povitica Bread! This Eastern European sweet bread is about to become your new baking obsession with its rich nutty filling wrapped in a soft, rich, buttery dough.
What is Povitica Bread?
Povitica is a traditional Christmas bread in Eastern Europe, made by rolling thin layers of sweet dough around a rich, nutty filling. While the classic povitica recipe calls for a walnut filling, there are plenty of delicious variations including tarragon, hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, and poppy seeds. This sweet bread holds a special place in Croatian and Slovenian culture, where it is known as potica, and often graces the table during Christmas and Easter celebrations. The spruce eats has an in-depth guide to Understanding povitica and potica if you want to read more about its history and popularity today.
How to Pronounce Povitica
If you have ever wondered how to say “povitica” without stumbling? Let’s clear up the mystery of how to pronounce this Croatian bread: The correct way to say it is “pow-vuh-teet-suh”. You can check this link for the audio guide.
Ingredients: What You Need to Make this Recipe
- Bread flour: You need 2 cups of high protein content flour, plus more for dusting. (If you don’t have bread flour check out this article to find suitable alternatives.)
- Granulated sugar: To sweeten the dough.
- Instant yeast: to help the povitica rise.
- Butter: Needs a diced unsalted butter at room temperature for the dough and slightly melted butter for the nut filling.
- Milk: Room temperature milk to combine the dough ingredients, and hot milk to easily mix the filling.
- Eggs: One whole egg for the dough and one egg yolk for the filling and reserve the white for washing the bread.
- walnuts, hazelnuts, vanilla extract, cocoa and ground cinnamon: These ingredients go into the nuts filling. The vanilla extract is optional.
- powdered sugar: One tablespoon for the nut filling and two tablespoons for sprinkling the bread after baking.
- Salt: To enhance the flavor.
Must-Have Tools for Making Povitica Bread
To make the perfect Croatian nut roll, you’ll need a few essential tools that you may already have: A kitchen scale and measuring cups and spoons for accurate measurements. Stand mixer or hand mixer for kneading the dough, but don’t worry if you don’t have one, your hand will do just fine with a prepware mixing bowls and a spatula, which you need in spread the filling. A rolling pin is essential for stretching the dough, while a hand blender or food processor is crucial for grinding the nuts and mixing the filling. Finally, you’ll need a 9 x 5 loaf pan to bake the bread and a pastry brush to help you wash the bread after its second rise.
Detailed Overview: How to Make Povitica Bread Recipe at Home
You can find the full written recipe below, but let me give you a detailed overview to make this recipe for povitica easier to understand the process before you get started.
Make The dough: You need bread flour, milk, yeast, sugar and salt to make the first dough consistency: the dough should be uniform and not sticky. After the dough is prepared, Turn the blender speed to medium to develop a bit of gluten network. Next, Add the diced butter one at a time to smooth and rich the dough. Why diced butter? It would be easy to mix it up. After finishing kneading, the dough should be homogeneous with well-developed gluten.
1st Rise: Allow the dough to rise at room temperature (70 degrees Fahrenheit is the best) for 1 hour until doubled in size.
Nut cinnamon filling: Prepare a filling that is neither too moist nor too firm. See the section below for step-by-step guide to prepare it
Shape povitica and spread the filling: As monition in the recipe card below, flatten the dough then roll a 15*10-inch (40*25 cm) rectangle. Test your dough, if it feels like it’s going to stick to the work surface, flour it or use a kitchen towel as I noted below. Then, continue rolling the dough into a 30 x 15-inch (80 x 40 cm) rectangle. spread the filling over the dough with a spatula. Finally, Fold the rolled dough into a long log and then form a letter S in the photo above.
2nd rise: Allow the Croatian povitica to rise in a greased 9×5 baking pan for about 1-1.5 hours.
Before baking: Do you remember the other egg white when we made the filling? Mix it and with a pastry brush wash the all top of bread to give it a shine without darkening the crust as it would with French brioche.
Bake: Bake the bread for 50 to 60 minutes or until golden brown. If you notice that the top is browning quickly, cover the bread loosely with aluminum foil.
How to Make the Filling?
Creating the perfect filling for your authentic Povitica bread is all about achieving a mixture that is neither too moist nor too firm.
- Strat by grinding the nut into a fine, sandy powder with a food processor or blender to create the base for your povitica filling.
- Next, melt the butter and add the milk at the same butter warmer.
- Put the powdered sugar, egg yolks, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, a pinch of cinnamon and a sprinkle of salt in the bowl of a food processor and mix. (you can add nutmeg if desired.)
- Gradually, some of the butter mixture and Pulse until well-blended and achieve a smooth mixture that’s easy to spread. At this phase, be careful not to make the mixture too runny, if needed add more milk to reach that perfect consistency.
This delicious filling is what makes Croatian nut bread so special, so take you time to get it just right.
How to store Povitica?
To keep Povitica at its best, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap to lock in moisture and prevent it from drying out at room temperature and it’ll stay fresh for up to a week or in your refrigerator for up to two weeks. For a longer term, slice the bread and wrap each slice in plastic wrap before placing in a freeze bag and freezing for up to three months.
Other Christmas Bread Recipes
Povitica Bread: Croatian Christmas Bread
Ingredients
For the dough
- 2 cups (290 grams) bread flour
- ¼ cup (60 grams) granulated white sugar
- 2 tbsp 30 grams unsalted butter diced (at room temperature)
- ⅔ cup (150 ml) milk
- 1 tsp (5 grams) coarse sea salt
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ tsp instant yeast
For the filling
- 1 cup (140 grams) walnuts
- 1 cup (140 grams) hazelnuts
- ⅓ cup (80 grams) slightly melted butter
- 4 tbsp (60 ml) hot milk
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tbsp (15 grams) powdered sugar
- ⅛ cup (15 grams) cocoa powder
- 1 pinch coarse sea salt
- 1 pinch ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract (optional)
For toppings
- 1 white egg
- 2 tbsp (30 grams) powdered sugar
Instructions
- Prepare the dough: Combine the flour, sugar, instant dry yeast and sea salt together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook until the dry ingredient is well distributed. (If you don't have a stand mixer, use a hand mixer with a spatula and mixing bowl.)
- Knead the dough: Add the half amount of milk and whole egg. knead on low speed for 4 minutes. Gradually, add the remaining milk and continue kneading. *You need to adjust slightly the amount of liquid until you get a uniform dough that doesn't stick to your fingers at the end of this stage.*
- Set the mixer speed to medium and mix for a further 4 minutes to develop a bit of gluten network. *At the end of this stage, the dough should be able to be stretched without tearing.*
- Add the diced butter one by one and continue kneading for 6-8 minutes, scrape down the sides of the bowl with spatula until it becomes clean. *At the end of the kneading process, the dough should be homogeneous with well-developed gluten.*
- 1st Rise: Lightly grease a medium bowl with butter or nonstick spray. Shape the bread dough into a ball. Put the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides and place the seam side down. (this prevents the dough from drying out.) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or aluminum foil and let the dough rise for 1 hour at room temperature or until doubled in size.
- Prepare the filling: Using a blender or food processor, grind the walnuts and hazelnuts into a fine sandy powder.
- Add warm milk, melted butter, powdered sugar, egg yolk, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, a pinch of ground cinnamon, and salt. Pulse until well blended. Set aside.*The nut mixture shouldn't be too firm, as we'll be spreading it into the dough. Add more milk if necessary.*
- grease a 9*5 inch baking pan. Set aside.
- Shape the Povitica: When the dough is ready, flour your work surface. Place the dough on it. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out into a 15*10-inch (40*25 cm) rectangle. (Test your dough: if it feels like it's going to stick to the work surface, sprinkle a bit of water on the work surface and spread out a large, clean kitchen towel and flour it. If all is well, you can continue and use a little more flour as needed.) Continue rolling out the dough into a 30*15-inch (80*40 cm) rectangle.
- Carefully spread the filling over the dough with a spatula. Distributing the filling evenly over the entire surface. (The dough is very soft on the bottom and you don't want to tear it.) Start by folding a small point on one of the large sides and continue folding up to the other point. When the rolled dough starts to get a little heavier, continue rolling the dough to form a 30-inch long log. (if you feel the dough is getting softer as you roll it or it sticks to the work surface, put some more flour on it and continue rolling.) Finally, fold the dough into 3 equal parts, forming a letter S. Place
- To finish, fold the dough into 3 equal parts, forming a letter S. Place it into the pan and cover. let it rest for 30 to 60 minutes, until it gains a little volume. (See the photos above as a visual.)
- 2nd Rise: Cover povitica dough with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel. Allow to rise for 1-1.5 hours or until it's puffy. (if it is very cold, put it in the oven with boiling water.)
- Towards the end of the second rise: Preheat the oven to 320°F (160°C). Wash the top of the bread with the egg whites that we separated earlier. (This will give it a shine without darkening the crust.)
- Bake: bake for 50-60 minutes or until golden brown. (If you tap on the top loaf, it sounds hollow when it is already baked.) Remove the bread from the oven and allow it to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Then, transfer it into the baking rack, let cool completely. Dust the top with powdered sugar (optional). Cut into slices and serve.
