Potica

Potica (pronounced po teet sah) has been a holiday tradition in my family my entire life.  Growing up we looked forward to the package that would come at Christmas from Grandma McHugh's twin sisters back in Illinois, not because it contained toys or trinkets for us to play with, but because it meant we got our yearly treat of this tasty Slovenian nut bread.  (You can read a bit more about potica here or here).  Each year the twins would make several batches of potica and send a section of the loaves to each family at Christmas time.  We'd all have some to eat at Christmas and then each family would take their loaf home to hoard to themselves, stowing it away in the freezer often until Easter, or some other time when the weakness for the sweetness would be too much to bear and they'd have to take the loaf out and indulge.  

Great Aunt Jean and Great Aunt June getting the pans ready for the potica

Our family has no Slovenian ancestry directly in it, but my Great Aunt June's husband Joe was Slovenian, so the tradition of making the bread came from his family, and we were lucky enough to reap the benefits.  Three years ago my mom, Grandma McHugh, Melanie and myself took a trip back to Illinois to visit family and to learn the ins and outs of making this holiday tradition.  It was a great trip, especially for Grandma since she got to see family members she hadn't seen in several years. 

Great Uncle Joe tuckered out after playing with Melanie.  He was absolutely AWESOME with kids!

This past fall Uncle Joe passed away, and the following week Aunt Jean passed away.  We are all feeling the sadness of their passing this holiday season, but I hope carrying on the tradition of making potica around the holidays will serve as a bittersweet reminder of how much they meant to all of us.  They were both truly wonderful people and we are all very blessed to have had them in our lives.

This year, mom and I included my sisters in the potica making session.  I'll share some pictures of the techniques we were taught that make creating this delicate bread a bit easier.  I debated sharing the recipe, but I don't feel like it's my recipe to share, so I'm just going to stick to the techniques and leave it to you to find your own recipe.  Some things have to remain secret, right? ;)

Tie a table cloth to the table and GENEROUSLY rub flour all over it.  Seriously, use LOTS of flour.  You don't want to skimp here.

A table cloth with some sort of print to it is helpful to know when you've rolled the dough thin enough.

We have a table cloth that we've designated specifically for this purpose, and we've marked on it how far we have to roll the dough to make it long enough for it to fill the three loaf pans that one recipe will accomodate.

Plop your dough out and roll, roll, roll.  This is where the print on the table cloth comes in handy.  You should be able to see the print through the dough once you've rolled it thin enough.

Another tip we got from Aunt June and Aunt Jean was to use rolling pins made from marble.  They make it so much easier to roll the dough out to that perfectly paper thin point.  Mom and I went in search of these for our Christmas gift to ourselves that year, they were so indispensable for this task.  I also love using mine for making homemade egg noodles and sugar cookies.  It just makes rolling things out a breeze!  Be warned though, if you get one make sure it has a little base to set the rolling pin on when not in use - you DO NOT want to drop one of these puppies on the floor, and definitely not on your foot!

 Trim off the excess dough that hangs over the edges of the table/the lines you've drawn on the cloth and use it to patch any tears you may have gotten while rolling the dough.

 Plop on the filling

 and start spreading!

  We left a 1/2" section on one long end of the dough to allow for sealing the loaf once it was rolled up.  This isn't required, but can be helpful.

 Once the filling is all spread out untie the table cloth and grab the edges to start rolling the dough jellyroll style.  Having two to three people to do this is helpful to be sure you get everything rolled at the same speed and your loaf doesn't end up cattywampus.

 This is when your generous flouring of the table cloth proves of vital importance.  If you floured your table cloth appropriately, like in the top picture (from our trip to learn from "the pros") your dough will roll into a beautiful spiral with little effort on your part.   We, however,  had a few patches of tablecloth on our first batch that weren't floured enough, so the dough was sticking.  If this happens just take a knife and gently separate the dough from the table cloth and keep on rolling.

 Once your loaf is all rolled up slice it in to thirds.  We used dental floss to do this since a knife can end up tearing or flattening the loaf if it isn't sharp enough.

 Place the dough seam side down in prepared pans.  Aunt June and Aunt Jean passed along the tip of lining the ends of the pans with foil (sprayed with non-stick spray just like the rest of the pan) since the filling tends to stick to the pans pretty badly.  This makes both removing the cooked loaves and cleanup much easier.

And there you have it!  

Once your loaves have cooled you can slice them to the size you would like (we tend to make them 8 inches each since the pans are 16 inches long) and bestow them upon some very lucky people, or stash them in the freezer to keep for yourself. If you're going to freeze them I recommend wrapping them in heavy duty foil and then plastic wrap, possibly even following with a freezer bag if you want to be really crazy about it.  Aunt Jean and Aunt June always did the foil/plastic wrap method, and the potica kept very nicely in the freezer wrapped this way for several months (often until Easter, occasionally we would resist the temptation to eat it even longer, but not often).

And just for fun, here are a few pictures of Melanie from the trip back to Illinois when she was a mere six months old .  Seeing pictures of the girls when they were younger is making me really excited to meet baby #3 in the near future :)