THE Recipe: traditional Slovenian potica

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Potica is known as the most famous Slovenian dish. It also takes first place among traditional Slovenian festive pastries. Potica is made for every bigger holiday or festivity, especially during Easter or Christmas holidays. We could say that no Slovenian holiday is truly complete without a slice of traditional potica. Before we “get down to business” or better said to prepare potica, let’s take a look at what potica actually is.

What is potica?

Potica is a traditional Slovenian dish. Slovenians also refer to potica s the queen of Slovenian holiday dishes. It’s a rolled pastry made of leavened dough filled with any of a great variety of fillings. It’s not easy to make one. You need just enough filling and just enough dough. More than 80 various types of fillings are known.

The traditional Slovenian fillings for potica can be made with walnut, hazelnut, walnut with raisins, tarragon, poppy seed, or cottage cheese. You will, however, come across another filling as well. Among them is also chocolate.

Potica is a festive pastry and can be baked in two ways: in the oven or directly on the hearth. The potica baking mould (called potičnik), which has a conical protrusion in the middle, was inspired by the moulds for baking the ring-shaped Napfkuchen cakes popular in German-speaking countries. 

Slovenian sourdough walnut potica by Anita Šumer, Sourdoughmania

Traditional Slovenian recipe for walnut potica

To make a traditional Slovenian potica you will need the following ingredients.

Leavened dough:

  • 1 kg flour
  • 30 g fresh yeast
  • 3-4 egg yolks
  • 300 ml of lukewarm milk
  • 120 g butter
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • lard for greasing a baking dish

Filling:

  • 600-700 g walnuts
  • 200 g honey
  • 50 g sugar
  • 100-200 ml milk
  • 1 egg
  • cinnamon
  • a dash of rum or homemade brandy

Preparation:

The dough must be prepared in a warm room. Mix the flour with a teaspoon of salt and mix the yeast with a teaspoon of sugar and two tablespoons of flour and 50 ml of lukewarm water or milk. Leave in a warm place to rise. Make a hole in the middle of the flour; add whisked eggs, yeast, melted butter and sugar into the hole. Add the lukewarm milk while stirring. Beat the dough for 15 minutes or until bubbles appear and the dough separates from the bowl. Sprinkle some flour on the beaten dough; cover the dough with a cotton cloth and leave in a warm place to rise. To prepare the filling, crush or grind the walnuts and pour some hot sweetened milk over them. Heat up the honey until it liquefies. Add the honey and cinnamon to the walnuts. Leave the filling to cool off. Add one or two eggs to the filling and mix thoroughly. Roll out the dough until it is ½ cm thick and spread the warm filling over it. Roll tightly and put it in a greased mould. Leave the potica to rise slowly. It will also rise during baking. Before baking, cover the potica with a whisked egg. Bake for an hour; when finished, leave it in the mould for 15 minutes to cool off. Sprinkle the potica with powdered sugar if desired. Dober tek!

Potica will perfectly accompany your Easter Day breakfast. Learn how to prepare a traditional Slovenian Easter Day breakfast, here.

Source: Slovenska turistična organizacija and Cook Eat Slovenia book