Daring Baker's Challenge: Povitica

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

The Daring Baker's Challenge will be a new monthly feature on my blog! This is my first month participating, and every month there will be a new challenge that I will post on the 27th of the month.

This bread is insanely complicated and I now understand why the Croatian grandma I saw in a YouTube video said she made them loaves in batches of twelve. I only made one loaf, which had a traditional walnut filling, and it was quite labor intensive. It is a yeast dough, which I tend to struggle with, but it actually came together quite easily. I had a harder time rolling the dough out thinly enough to get enough beautiful layers inside. The recipe suggested you roll the dough out on a bed sheet, which I did. Felt kind of weird, but it was quite effective.

This bread was really addictive and delicious. I thought, oh, this bead is just okay, but then I couldn't leave it alone. I am now trying to come up with some filling variations. I'd like to incorporate apple butter into my next one, as I have a fresh batch a friend made for me!