Potica (pronounced Po-TEET-sa) is a traditional Serbian nut bread.  It was something we had every Christmas in my family.  A few words of caution before you begin, this is my grandmother’s recipe and is not for the beginning baker.  You don’t need a ton of baking skills, but this isn’t a project I suggest tackling if you’ve never made bread before, and certainly not something you should tackle as a first baking project.  This is a recipe that takes a lot of patience and requires time.  Its not something that can be rushed.  I love to bake but I wouldn’t tackle this after a hard day’s work, or if I had somewhere else to be later in the day.  This is a great project for a day when you just want to stay home in a warm kitchen.  Also, this is far from frugal, which is probably why we only ever had it at Christmas, it was a special treat.  The recipe requires 2 pounds of walnuts, I bought walnuts for $9 a pound at Costco.  At my regular grocery store they are much more expensive and I can’t even imagine how much organic walnuts would be if you could find them (my usual grocery shopping spots don’t carry organic walnuts).  

After giving you all those cautions, Potica is indeed something that is really special.  Just ask anyone who’s ever had it, they’ll most likely recall it with great relish and share stories of their grandmother.  Its a wonderful thing to share with people you love.  The amount of time and attention it requires means that it inherently absorbs all the love and memories you can pour into it as you work.  Potica is a tradition I love sharing with everyone who comes into my life.  If you can’t tell, its incredibly special to me.  Potica is love manifested in food, memories, and tradition in my past, present, and it will be there in my future too.  I promise you’ll love Potica if you like walnuts and aren’t allergic, and if you like baking even just a little bit, you’ll like the process too.

Potica Dough:

• 2 teaspoons yeast
• 1/2 Cup warm water
• 1 1/2 Cups warm milk
• 3/4 Cup butter
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 5 egg yolks (save the whites for the filling)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 7 + Cups Flour

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Add the milk, butter, egg yolks, sugar, salt, vanilla, and nutmeg.  Whisk to combine, begin adding the flour to form a dough.  (I use a dough hook on my mixer, but you can do this by hand.)  You want a nice together soft ball.  I always finish it off by kneading it by hand until the dough is soft and elastic.  Put it a greased bowl, cover with a towel and let sit for about an hour.  This is a heavy dough and it won’t exactly double, but that’s okay.

While your dough is rising, start the Potica Filling:

• 1 1/2 Cups Milk
• 5 Egg Whites
• 1/2 Cup Butter
• 2 Cups Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Honey
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (my grandmother’s recipe says to taste – I’m approximating how much I use)
• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla
• 2 Pounds ground walnuts (I use a vintage hand grinder but you can do it in a food processor)

Combine the egg whites and milk in a large saucepan.  Whisk together over medium-low heat until it reaches 125 degrees on a candy thermometer – whisk the entire time and do it over low heat lest you get scrambled eggs.  After it reaches 125 degrees, remove the thermometer and add the sugar, honey, butter, and cinnamon.  Whisk everything together and whisking almost constantly bring the mixture to a simmer.  The mixture will swell, so be sure to use a large saucepan and keep whisking, it will thicken slightly and get frothy, keep the heat on medium-low.  Once it starts to simmer, remove from the heat and add your vanilla, mix well.  Pour over your ground nuts and mix well.  Let this sit and cool.

After your dough has sat for 1 hour and your filling is cool, you can Assemble the potica.

Punch down the dough and divide it into fourths (I find that fourths is the easiest for me to manage but use your own judgement either divide it more or less).  You’re going to roll this dough out and will need a lot of space.  On a floured surface, using a rolling pin, roll your fourth of dough into a very thin sheet.  The best potica has paper thin dough, and this takes time and can be slightly frustrating.  The dough is very elastic and you have to be persistent in your rolling.  Keep rolling until you get it as thin as you can without the dough breaking or forming holes.  Now spread your dough with your filling.  I use a rubber spatula to do this.  You want to spread it on without skimping, but the filling doesn’t need to be thick, so cover the surface well but not thickly if that makes sense.  You want the entire surface of the dough covered.  After you have your dough covered in filling, roll it up jelly roll style.

I usually cut the roll in half, to make it fit my baking sheet and this gives me smaller loaves for gift giving, however you can just put the whole roll onto your baking sheet.  You want to use a greased baking sheet, I use silicone baking sheets, but parchment paper or oil will work just fine.  Repeat the process until you use up all your dough and filling.

Set the potica under a towel and preheat your oven to 325 degrees.  You don’t want the dough to rise too much (remember the best potica has thin dough), so once your oven preheats, put the sheets in the oven.  I usually have two cookie sheets with 8 loaves total going in the oven, which means using two oven racks.  I rotate the sheets halfway through the cooking time.  You want approximately 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes cooking time, so if you have to rotate, do so after 30 minutes.  When they’re done they’ll be golden brown and springy to your touch, some may split a little during baking, that’s fine really.  Remove from the pans to cool on wire racks.

Note:  You can make these in a cookie form as well, with slightly less work.  Make the filling as above and let cool.  Make a sweet pie crust and roll it out thin.  Spread your cooled filling onto the pie crust.  Cut it into strips with a pizza cutter and roll the crusts like miniature crescent rolls and bake at 325 for about 10 minutes until golden brown.

The original potica and the cookies freeze extremely well.  In fact, I rather like the cookies straight from the freezer.  Enjoy!  A few slices with a cup of tea or coffee is a great snack!

This is the end of my Christmas baking posts for this year.  I was going to wait until next weekend to post, but wanted you to have time to find the ingredients and bake it for your Christmas celebration if you are so inclined.