Povitica, Traditional and My Take

Strawberry Hill makes povitica for the Kansas City Ukranian and Croatian and Eastern European people in the Midwest. They do an amazing job of it and were highly recommended by John's father's cousins. So we bought an apple cinnamon one and an English walnut one to see what they were really like.

We ate the apple cinnamon one, first, and that's what I started my experiments to reproduce.

I started with Joy Food Sunshine's Homemade Povitica Bread Recipe, but it was far too light and airy and bread-like for me. It's a very nice loaf of sweet bread with a very light swirl of nuts for flavor and scent. It's a nice thing, but entirely unlike the Strawberry Hill loaf, which was super dense and the swirl of flavors dominated the almost chewy wrapper around the filling. It also had very little cinnamon, something I really missed as the Strawberry Hill apple povitica had a wealth of cinnamon richness.

Also in talking to the Arkansas cousins, living in the American Southeast, the nut of preference was the local pecans, not walnuts, so I stuck with that and their stories and memories of their grandmother grinding pecans in a hand cranked meat grinder. I used our meat grinder for the nuts, but you can just use a food processor instead.

So I changed it significantly, and baked six different loaves to get to where I really wanted it and everyone that tasted it loved it. But then I tasted the Strawberry Hill English walnut loaf and found a far more traditional Croatian recipe and neither of them actually did nearly as much cinnamon! It was really a loaf that highlighted the richness and subtle flavors of the nuts.  

So if you want a more traditional loaf, probably cut the cinnamon to at most half a teaspoon and add more vanilla to the filling. Or go the other way and just put in a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder instead of the cinnamon to a) darken the mixture so it looks great and b) add some chocolate to the mix which is always good. Strawberry Hill does also sell a chocolate loaf, and I'm intrigued enough to probably buy and sample that too, eventually. In the meantime, this is what I settled on after all the loaves I baked.

Ingredients

Dough

• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoon instant yeast
• 2 Tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/3 cup bread flour + up to a 1/2 cup of bread flour for kneading in
• 1 large egg lightly beaten
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 or 2 teaspoons of neutral oil

Pecan Filling

• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 8 ounces of pecans run through the larger holes of a hand crank meat grinder
• See picture below for the kind of consistency you want
• If you just put them into a food processor and pulse to the texture, that'll work too
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (fresh if you can)
• 1 large egg separated
• Pull 1 Tablespoon of the white into a different container
• Put the rest of the white back with the yolk and beat lightly
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Methodology

Making the Dough

1. Put the butter in the milk and microwave on high for thirty seconds. Let the milk sit to the side and stir occasionally to melt the butter.
2. Mix together the instant yeast, sugar, salt, whole wheat flour, and initial cup and a third of bread flour.
3. With the butter completely melted, pour in the milk and butter, mix to incorporate, and then add the egg and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Then, using the 1/2 cup of reserved flour, flour your working surface, and dump the dough onto it. Knead in as much flour as you need to make a smooth, pliable dough that is easy to handle and passes the window pane test, about ten to fifteen minutes. I only kneaded half my flour in most of the time, but I'm in a very dry environment. The amount is going to depend on your conditions.
4. Pour your neutral oil into a bowl, put the ball of dough into it. Turn the dough until it's all coated with the oil, cover, and let sit in a warm area to double in bulk. While the dough is rising, make the filling.

Making the Filling

1. Grind your nuts. You can do pecans or walnuts. The pictures shows enough for three loaves, or about a pound and a half of nutmeat. You can click on the picture to zoom into it and see the exact consistency.  I used the big holes for a hand cranked meat grinder, but you can use a food processor to just pulse your nuts until it's like this. I also know that a large number of nut companies sell pecan meal. That would work as well. Just weigh it out then, and you're set.

2. I melted my butter in my milk again, as it was easier, and then just mixed it with everything other than any of the egg bits. It should make a spreadable paste. Set it aside until the dough is doubled in bulk. 

Shaping and Baking the Bread

1. I took out the risen dough and pressed it gently to "punch it down", and folded it on itself a few times to just redistribute the yeast and dough so that it was even throughout. Then I shaped it into a ball, closed the bottom seam, and then let it sit under the bowl for twenty minutes to let all the gluten relax.

2. I lightly dusted my work surface with flour, turned out the dough, rubbed flour into my pin and started rolling. To make a more square shape, roll out to the corners, and then roll the edges toward the corners. I go from the center out to all four sides, and then concentrate on the corners again. If it sticks to the surface, lift the dough off, dust everything again, and go again. If the dough is contracting too much after every roll, just leave it for ten minutes, let the gluten relax, and then roll again.

3. Roll it until you can faintly see the surface underneath through the dough. I measured 23" by 19", but go for as big as you're comfortable doing, and keep it rectangular, with a distinctly long and short edge. 

4. Stir your filling, if it's too stiff, heat it for a while in the microwave, just a bit. Stir it to see if it's creamy enough to spread easily, and *then* add the egg yolk and white mixture (leaving the tablespoon of white aside for later) to the filling and mix it thoroughly into the mixture. Spread over the dough. I dotted it by the spoonful all over the surface and then used the back of the spoon to smooth it all over. 

5. Roll it up from the short side, so you have the most rolls. You want as many layers as possible through it, so going from the short side works the best for that. 

Grease and flour your 9"x5" loaf pan.

6. Lengthen the roll until it's three times the length of your bread pan. I just stretched the whole thing for a while, used a rolling pin from the center to the outside a few times. As you can see from the picture of the whole loaf at the start, the three sections are taller than they are wide, so a little flattening won't hurt. You should end up with an S-curve, three even sections folded on each other, with an end of the roll at each end of the loaf pan. Drop your shaped dough into the pan.

7. Cover and put into a warm spot and let sit there for at least 15 minutes, more is mildly better, but you really shouldn't need much more than that to heat your oven. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

7a. If you want this for breakfast, you can just put the shaped and risen loaf (give it that 15 minute rest) into the refrigerator, take it out of the fridge in the morning before heating your oven, then heat up your oven to 350, and pop it in. Follow the remaining directions the same way, but you'll have fresh povitica for breakfast.

8. Brush the reserved egg white onto the top to glaze, you don't have to use all of it, but I used enough to just coat the top. Bake for fifteen minutes at 350.

9. After fifteen minutes, turn the oven down to 300 degrees and bake for an additional 45 minutes. After about thirty minutes of this bake, check to see if it's brown enough, and cover with foil if it is. After the full forty five, check the internal temp. It should be at least 180 degrees Fahrenheit to be done, between that and 190 is good. Cool for 20-30 minutes on a wire rack before removing from the pan. Let cool completely before cutting.

Enjoy!