Povitica

Preparation steps

• For the dough, it would be ideal to have a stand-alone mixer, but even if you don’t, the dough can be kneaded with a mixer with a dough attachment and finished with your hands. Put flour and sugar in a bowl, add salt to one side of the bowl and instant yeast to the other side of the bowl.
• Add melted butter, egg, vanilla seeds or vanilla sugar and warm milk and start mixing on low speed. When the dough starts to even out, mix for another 5-8 minutes on medium speed until the dough becomes soft, smooth and stretchy.
• Put the kneaded dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise until it doubles, about 1 hour.
• Grease a bread pan. The mold can also be lined with baking paper.
• For the filling, place the butter and milk in a small bowl and heat slowly until the butter has melted. Put walnuts, 1/2 vanilla seed and cocoa powder in a blender and mix until the walnuts are chopped, then add the egg yolk, a mixture of warmed milk and butter and blend a little more together.
• Cover the table with a clean tablecloth or sheet and sprinkle it with flour. Shake the dough that has risen and roll it out into a rectangle measuring 50x30 cm. Coat the rolled dough with melted butter.
• Roll your hands lightly in the flour and pull them under the rolled dough and further stretch it towards the ends until it completely separates and becomes transparent to a size of approximately 1 m x 60 cm.
• Taking care not to tear the dough, apply the filling to the rolled dough until the dough is completely covered. If the filling is squeezed too much from standing for too long, a little warm milk can be added to release the filling.
• Starting from the long end of the dough, roll the dough with a tablecloth until you get a long roll. Lightly lift the dough and place in the mold from one end to the other end of the mold, so that the dough first forms the letter "U" on the underside of the mold, and then roll the rest of the dough into the letter "U".
• Put the prepared mold with the dough in a clean bag and let it grow for another 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Coat the dough with egg whites and bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven to 150 C and bake for the next 45 minutes, or until the dough turns golden brown. If the dough starts to darken too quickly, cover the top of the dough with aluminum foil.
• After baking, leave the Povitica in the mold for another 30 minutes, before removing it from the mold and leaving it to cool completely.
• Mix powdered sugar with a few drops of cold water and sprinkle over the baked Povitica.
• After a lot of effort, you just enjoy yourself with a cup of tea or coffee!