Trivial food: Slovenian Potica

Potica (poh-TEET-sah) is a traditional Slovenian coffee cake that we eat pretty much at every major holiday, and especially at Christmas. Every household seems to have their own tricks and tips for how to make the best potica, and people who make good potica are really proud of their skills.

We are fortunate enough that Jasna is a master in making potica. She spent a long time fiddling with the recipe from "Vsakdanje in praznicne jedi", adjusting it until she arrived at what we believe is close to perfection in the potica land. I became pretty good at following her recipe, so my job tends to be making the dough and the filling. Rolling the dough out and making the potica itself, well, for that I would require much more practice.

We bake potica in a bundt pan or in a straight pan, the choice tends to depend on the quantity we make. The recipe works well for both.

Ingredients for the dough for one pan:

300g flour. Our preference is freshly milled whole einkorn.
3.25 tsp dry yeast and 1 TBS sugar
100 ml milk
70g unsalted butter
70g sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
Grated rind of one lemon. For the rind, we always use organic lemons.

Ingredients for the filling for one pan:

250g finely ground toasted walnuts. Pecans and almonds work great as well.
125 ml milk or whipping cream, or a mix
50g raisins soaked in rum
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
Grated rind of one lemon. For the rind, we always use organic lemons.
Sweetener by taste: We prefer a 3 TBS or a bit more honey.
Meringue made from the two egg whites and 1 TBS sugar.

Additional ingredients:

Extra butter for greasing the pan
To brush the potica before rising and before baking, one lightly whipped egg white.

We have accidentally used the whole egg and that has worked well, just that the potica seemed a bit darker.

Procedure:

Bring eggs and butter to the room temperature. A few hours on a counter will work.
To make the filling:

Drain the raisins.
Mix the nuts, cinnamon, and lemon rind. Also add sugar if you are not using honey.
Boil the milk and pour it over the nuts mixture.
Add honey and drained raisins.
Mix well, adjust sweetness to taste. We don't like the filling to be overly sweet.

To make the dough:

Heat the milk so that it is a bit warm to touch. Too warm milk will kill the yeast.
Mix the milk, the 1 TBS of sugar and the milk. Leave for 10 or so minutes for the yeast to start blooming.
In a mixer, mix all the ingredients for the dough until it just starts making a ball.

DO NOT OVERMIX, the goal is not to develop gluten.
If you use a food processor, use the pulse function.

To roll the potica:

On a sheet of parchment paper roll out potica dough so that it will fit the pan.

You need to experiment a bit to figure out what dimensions work for your pan.
One dimension should be slightly longer than the width of your pan. The dimension along which you roll the potica depends of how thick/thin you want your layers to be

Spread the filling on the dough.

Spread the filling all the way to the edge of the dough where you will start rolling the potica. Leave about 2 inches of the dough bare on the other three edges so that you can pinch/enclose the roll.

To make the roll, hold the parchment and roll the potica tightly by lifting the mat.
Pinch the ends of the roll so that the filling does not seep out.

Let the potica rise:

Carefully transfer the sheet with the roll to the pan.
Trim the parchment
Brush the roll with the egg white. Store the remaining egg white in the fridge.
Cover the pan with a plastic wrap (or traditionally with a dish cloth)
Let rise for about 8h at room temperature, somewhere where it is not drafty.

Your oven, if it is not hot, will work well. Make sure you take the potica out before you start pre-heating the oven.

Bake the potica:

Preheat the oven to 325F. We use convection.
Brush the roll with the stored egg white
Using a toothpick or a skewer punch holes through the roll, up to about 3/4 of the depth.