Croatian Povitica Recipe

Povitica is a Croatian bread which is twisted and swirled and filled with delicious nut or fruit fillings.

Background

I’ve been looking for a technical loaf to make to try out my breadmaking skills.

This loaf, Croatian Povitica, which is typically filled with a walnut and cinnamon filling, seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

It is a sweet dough, rather like a yeast-leavened cake in its ingredients (plain flour and yeast amongst others).

The exterior looks rather unassuming but inside it is filled with swirls and loops, and the flavour is to die for.

See what I mean? This was filled with an apple and cinnamon filling, as I am not keen on walnuts.

The sweet, buttery apple and cinnamon filling was amazing.

My children loved this too. If only I could make it all the time!

Having made one loaf, I was compelled to make some more. The first time, I made one loaf on its own. This was not enough!

The second time, I made two loaves at the same time, dividing the dough before proving. This was better! I tried two different flavours for the second batch: blackberry cream cheese and chocolate orange.

Povitica Recipe

I found the basic Croatian povitica recipe on The Gingered Whisk (note that the page is no longer available in 2019).

A group called the Daring Bakers made it as one of their challenges 3 years ago. If it was good enough for the Daring Bakers, it was good enough for me! I adapted the recipe slightly to fit what I had available.

The apple and cinnamon filling is adapted from here. The other two fillings were just devised from ingredients I had in my fridge and cupboards.

Here are the blackberry cream cheese and chocolate orange flavours. A delicious treat, just a slice served with a cup of coffee or tea tastes amazing.

How to Make Croatian Povitica

All the steps are laid out below, follow through each of them.

It is quite a complex recipe!

Making the Dough

1. Put the ingredients to activate the yeast listed above in a small bowl, cover it and leave for 5 minutes. Bubbles should form.
2. Heat the milk in a jug in the microwave for about 1.5 minutes until very hot but not boiling. Leave it to cool for a few minutes.
3. Take a large bowl, and add the cooled milk, sugar and salt. Mix them together until dissolved.
4. Next add the two beaten eggs, the yeast and water etc from step one, the melted butter, and about a quarter of the flour.
5. Mix the ingredients together well, and slowly mix in the rest of the flour. The dough should start coming away from the sides of the bowl.
6. Place the dough on your floured worktop, and knead it. Add a little flour bit by bit, until the dough is no longer sticky.
7. Knead it until smooth and elastic.
8. Split the dough until two equal parts. I weighed mine to ensure they were the same size.
9. Place each one in an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and place in a warm place to rise for 1.5 hours. It should double in size.

Rolling Out

1. Spread a clean tea/dish towel on your work surface and sprinkle it with a little flour to stop the dough sticking to it.

2. Take the dough from one bowl. Put it down on the tea towel and roll it out with a rolling pin. I made mine the size of my large tea towel.
3. At this point you can spoon on some melted butter if needed, or just stretch by hand without the butter until the dough is thin and opaque.

Add Fillings

1. Spoon your chosen filling (3 options given above) over the dough until evenly covered. Get it as close to the long edge as possible.

2. Lift the edge of the tea towel and roll the dough a bit like a Swiss roll. If it sticks, gently pull it off the tea towel.
3. Take the long roll of dough and put it in your oiled loaf tin in a U shape, with the ends coiling in on itself.
4. Repeat all the steps above from Rolling Out for the 2nd loaf using the dough from the other bowl, with your chosen filling.

Baking

1. Brush the loaf with a little milk, then bake for 15 minutes at 180°C, then turn down to 150°C and bake for a further 45 minutes.
2. If the loaf goes too brown, cover the top with some foil. Make sure the dough is fully cooked before removing it, so you don’t have the same problem with raw dough as the GBBO bakers today! To check this, tap the bottom of the loaf, it should sound hollow. You can also test with a food thermometer like a (affiliate link) Thermapen.

3. Allow the loaf to cool in the loaf tin.
4. When cutting, turn it upside down to prevent it falling apart.
5. When sliced, you should reveal the pretty swirling patterns as seen on GBBO!

More bread recipes to try

If this advanced bread recipe has got you wanting more, try another of my bread recipes with plaiting and twisting galore:

• apricot couronne
• fruit bread crown
• rosemary sage bread
• apricot cranberry plait