Even though I said I wouldn’t make it for these holidays, I changed my mind merely two days ago. I don’t know if it was for the fact that our stock of polvorones and marzipan disappeared sooner than anticipated, or because I just couldn’t wait to give it a try and make my very first potica.

I had no idea potica (pronounced: po-teet-sah) was that popular beyond our borders! This nut-filled yeast bread pastry, apparently known all around our part of Europe -under different names, of course – is traditionally made on feasts like Easter, Christmas, sometimes even for birthdays and other similar celebrations. The most classical is the one with walnut filling, although nowadays you could find all sorts of “exotic” flavors inside this pastry (strawberry and peppermint potica, anybody?).

In my family we were always baking it at home; I think I tasted a store bought potica once in my life only – it was exaggeratedly sweet and greasy – not my style. We would normally use walnuts and sometimes almonds or hazelnuts for the filling – that’s why I rather opted for something different, something I’ve never tried before: carob.

Carob is a pod-shaped fruit of the carob tree, a leguminous (pulse family) evergreen tree, native to the Mediterranean.  Nowadays we use carob as a substitute for cocoa/chocolate (no, it does not taste the same), but that is not all: in some countries they make a refreshing drink out of crushed pods, while in others they use carob for compotes and liqueurs, and eat it as a snack. The seeds are used as animal feed, too. Not many people know that carob pods were an important source of sugar before sugarcane and sugar beets became widely available.

When I told my grandma about my potica attempt, she looked astonished. “I haven’t eaten carob potica since I was a child! You know, in those hard times (after the WW II) when people could not afford walnuts, they would use carob for making pastries. Yes, yes, “potica of the poor” we used to call it.”
I always like to listen to stories of my grandma. When she starts remembering the past, she can talk for hours. “It’s nice that you decided to use carob. But you see, carob filling can be pretty dry if you only cook it in milk. I advice you to enrich it with some butter or cream, this way your potica will taste great!”

With my grandma’s advices on my mind and with a lot of illusion I woke up into yesterday’s morning. I didn’t follow any particular recipe because even if I wanted to, I always end up improvising anyway. Here is my recipe:

Potica dough:
600g all-purpose flour
30g fresh yeast
4 tsp sugar
150ml milk
70g butter
100ml whipping cream (35%)
a pinch of salt
3 egg yolks
a splash or two of rum
1tsp ground cinnamon

Carob filling:
275g ground carob
100g sugar
75g honey (acacia, tilia…)
grated peel of one each non-treated orange and lemon
1-2tsp ground cinnamon
150ml whipping cream
500ml whole milk
50g butter
1 grated apple

an egg yolk for brushing
butter for greasing the mold
bread crumbs for sprinkling the mold

1. In a bowl, sift the flour, make a “well” in the middle and place inside the crumbled fresh yeast (the crumblier the fresher), pour the heated milk (37ºC is believed to be the optimal temperature), in which you’ve previously dissolved the sugar, and sprinkle with some flour. Cover the bowl and let the yeast activate for about 15 minutes.

2. In a sauce pan, melt the butter on a low temperature, add the cream, cinnamon, rum and salt. Once it gets lukewarm, add it to the flour together with egg yolks and start kneading.

3. Once the dough becomes elastic, it’s time to start beating it: we use a very big wooden spoon to perform that and it’s quite a heavy job. Usually, two people are needed to beat the dough well. This helps introducing air in the dough and hence making it lighter.

4. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rise for about an hour. Then beat the dough again for a few minutes, cover and let rise for additional 30′ – 1h.

5. Make the filling: in a bigger sauce pan, boil the milk together with grated peel of one orange and lemon, honey, sugar and cinnamon. Lower the fire and add the ground carob. Stir for about 3 minutes and remove from fire. Stir in the butter and let cool.
Finally, mix in one peeled and grated apple and set aside.

6. Roll out the dough on a floured surface (0.5 – 0.3cm thick) and spread the carob filling all over it. Now the hardest part (at least for me): roll the dough carefully, as tightly as you can, then place it into your potica mold. Mine was a bit too small (22cm of diameter) for the dough, so I had to cut the edges a bit in order to fit it in the mold. But however, that’s what we always do: we bake those “edges” separately and eat them just like potica – we call them “štruklji”.

7. Potica should rest in the mold for half an hour more before heading into the oven (preheated to 200ºC). Don’t forget to pierce the dough with a wooden skewer and brush it with the egg yolk.

8. Baking depends on your oven entirely. My grandma starts baking it at high temperature (200ºC), then lowers it after 10minutes (180ºC) and after 20 minutes again (160ªC). I did it like that too but as my oven is just a simple portable electric oven, that heats pretty strong, I had to cover potica with aluminium paper already after 10 minutes of baking. The baking took 1 hour and I used a wooden skewer to check the dough.

9. Let potica sit after baking (10-15 minutes), then unmold. Do not cut it while still warm (I did it for the sake of photo but really I don’t recommend it). Once cool, you can decorate with it confectioner’s sugar.

I made it!

I will have to practice the rolling part a bit – that’s where I had the most of trouble. Also, next time I will reduce the quantity of flour because 600g was too much for my mold. The grated apple contributed to the moisture very well and I warmly recommend it. It also makes a good substitute for raisins.

Finally, I’d like to wish you a very HAPPY NEW YEAR, all the best and SEE YOU IN 2009!!