Croatian Holiday Nut Roll (Povatica)

1. In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine milk and yeast. Let sit and froth up for about 10 minutes.

2. Add in sugar, eggs and softened butter. Both the eggs and the butter help make this bread rich, and tender – like brioche.

3. A bit of salt, which gives dimension. Salt is flavor jewelry. Without it, everything is okay. But with it? Stunning!

4. Add in flour and mix/beat with the dough hook of your mixer for about 10 minutes. The dough should be soft and pull cleanly away from the sides of the bowl. It should not be sticky, nor dry.

5. Let the dough rise for 1.5 hours. Be sure to cover the dough, so it won’t dry out. I left mine in the mixing bowl and draped a towel over it.

Meanwhile, for the filling:

a. Pull out your food processor and add in the walnuts,
brown sugar (is there anything better in this world?), and a dab of butter and scoop of cinnamon. Oh cinnamon… you are like the holiday messenger, coming to tell me it’s time to celebrate!

b. Splash in a drizzle of vanilla extract. Did you know that you can wear vanilla extract like perfume? My mom always dabs a little on her wrists when she bakes. I do the same because I value tradition and smelling like cookies.

c. Finally, add a little milk. Just enough to get this paste loose for spreading.Pulse everything together until you have an ooey gooey ball of sweet, scrumptious filling… someone pick my husband up off the floor. He just fainted.

BACK TO THE DOUGH!

Meanwhile, our dough has been very busy rising…

6. Divide the dough into 2 evenly sized sections and roll them out. I am putting this in loaf pans, so the dough should be roughly the width of a loaf pan (I made mine a little too big which caused buckling in one loaf pan). Anyway, just as thin as you can! Alas, a Croatian grandmother, I am not.

7. Spread on the gooey filling, evenly across the entire amount of dough. Hear your heart flutter. (PS: see that pan hanging behind the mixer? Read about the time I bought it on the Related Blog Post). Sprinkle one Povatica with raisins, if that’s how you roll.

The raisins really dismayed Mr. Picky but I remained steadfast and strong.

8. Then roll up your dough. Once tightly rolled, pinch the ends so no filling oozes out. And place in an oiled loaf pan.

9. Let rest another thirty minutes to an hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F

10. Bake 35-40 minutes, or until golden brown.

11. While still warm, spread with butter. You heard me. It gives the dry crust an alluring sheen, even once cool. Oh heavens!

12. Let cool 2 hours before slicing. Just kidding! But try to wait at least 30 minutes, or the filling will fall apart on you.