Potica pt 1

1 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
---Potica Dough---
600 grams Wheat flour; warmed, fine-grain, dry
60 grams Fresh yeast
2¾ decilitre Warm milk; 2.5--3
100 grams Softened butter
3 Egg yolks
100 grams Sugar
2 teaspoons Dark rum
Grated peel of 1 lemon
1 pinch Salt

Directions

Sift the flour into a bowl (cover and set in a warm place if the flour has not been warmed previously). Crumb the yeast into a large cup, add 2 Teaspoon warm milk, 1 teaspoon sugar and mix; set the yeast into a warm place to rise (the mixture should rise to at least twice its original volume before usage). Mix softened butter, sugar and egg-yolks and beat until the sugar is well dissolved and the mixture is frothy. Warm up the milk, mix in salt, lemon peel, rum and the butter mixture. Form the dough out of the warm flour, yeast and the milk mixture -- the trick is not to pour in all the milk mixture immediately: use about ¾ to start with, then add more as the dough forms (the quantity of milk (in the above list of ingredients) is not quite fixed -- it depends on the quality of the flour: with very fine-grain flour, very dry, use all 3 deciliter -- you should use less with inferior quality flour). Beat the dough vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough is smooth and separates easily from the spoon and the bowl. Cover the bowl with a cloth and set the dough in a warm place to rise ~- before continuing, the dough should rise to twice its size.

Some Fillings

Chocolate: mix 200 grams softened butter with 4 eggs and 200 grams sugar; beat the mixture until frothy; mix in 250 grams softened chocolate (or powdered) and 250 grams chopped almonds Walnut: scald 300 grams ground walnuts with ⅛ litre boiling milk; mix in 2 Teaspoon dry bread-crumbs, 30 grams softened butter, 3 Teaspoon thick cream, 2 egg-yolks, ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground cloves; beat 2 egg-whites until very stiff and fold into the mixture.

Hazelnut: same as walnut, only use ground walnuts instead of hazelnuts; Tarragon: mix 100 grams softened butter with 3 egg-yolks and 100 grams sugar, beat vigorously until frothy; add ½ cup freshly chopped tarragon and 2½ deciliter very thick cream (save another ½ cup chopped tarragon to sprinkle on top of the spread mixture) Raisins: soak 400 grams raisins or sultanas in dark rum for 2 hours; mix 100 grams softened butter with 150 grams sugar and 3 egg-yolks until frothy; mix in the drained raisins or sultanas, grated lemon peel, 3 Teaspoon dry bread-crumbs, 1 deciliter very thick cream; beat 3 egg-whites until very stiff and fold into mixture.

Poppy: cook ½ kilogram ground poppy seeds in ¼ liter milk (or cream) for 5--10 minutes; allow to cool, then mix in 3 egg-yolks, 2 Teaspoon honey, 150 grams sugar, 2 teaspoon vanilla-scented castor sugar; beat 3 egg-whites until very stiff and fold into mixture.

Cooking Potica is traditionally baked in a round, "toroidal" (i.e., with a raised hole in the middle) ceramic mold. But whatever you use, make sure the mold is a high one - potica is supposed to raise a lot. For good potica, the proportions of the height of the mold vs. its width should be at least 2:1. Set the oven to 200 C. Roll out the dough to the thickness of your little finger (that's the traditional measure) and spread with chosen filling, within 5 cm of the "last" edge. Roll the potica gently, but make sure there are no air pockets left in the roll (for easy handling, roll out the dough on a dry linen cloth dusted with flour). Grease the baking dish and dust with bread-crumbs; carefully transfer the potica into the dish, the covering ("last") edge should be at the bottom. Cover the dish with cloth and set in a warm place -- potica should rise to twice its size before baking. Put potica in the warmed-up oven and bake for 1 hour; if the top starts to turn very dark brown, cover with paper. Baked potica should be removed from the baking dish immediately (if you've greased and dusted the dish properly, you just need to turn it over onto an appropriate plate). Dust warm potica with vanilla-scented castor sugar -- but do not cut until completely cooled (traditionally, potica was always baked a day before it was served). This recipe has been taken with permission from the WorldWideWeb server at the URL '' From: Polona.Novak@... (Polona Novak) Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes Subject: Potica Date: 18 Feb 1994 13:18:08 -0500 Organization: J. Stefan Institute, Lj, Slovenia

NOTES : (pronounce as: paw-tee-tzah, stress on tee) The secret of a good potica is in appropriate dough, and the secret of continued in part 2

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