Hi my name is Marla & I want to enter this post in to the Frontier Challenge.
I decided I was going to learn to make Povitica last December after visiting my hometown of Kansas City, KS. Povitica is a traditional holiday bread that originated in Eastern Europe, especially popular in Croatia & Poland. A cross section of the bread shows paper thin layers of sweet yeasted dough filled with ground pecans, cinnamon and a touch of cocoa. My Grandma Frankie was a first generation Polish-American meaning Povitica is a Christmas staple for us. We always purchased the holiday treat but I thought to myself “Marla, you can make croissants by hand - you can so make Povitica!”
I didn’t have a family recipe so I did what anyone would do and Googled it. I found this recipe but it had you baking the bread in 3 round cake pans. I decided it would be better with 1 loaf, 1 bundt & 3 mini loafs. The recipe said to divide the dough in to 3 pieces to roll thin and I divided the dough in to 9 pieces. This helped the rolling process tremendously. I realize now I should have allowed the dough to relax after the initial rolling and then re-rolled the dough some more to achieve maximum thinness. Now I just need to find a better filling recipe w/honey and increase the filling to dough ratio. I am thinking that should put me on the right track.
