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!
Jenni described Povitica to be like Kalachi. I was able to grasp an idea of what it what it was from that comparison. My mom learned to make Kalachi from someone in Eastern Ohio where she grew up. She has been making it for as long as I can remember around the holidays. This is one of her standard holiday gifts that she has on hand to give to neighbors if they show up with a surprise gift. If she lucky … or I should if family was lucky, she would get in an extra batch and include Kalachi as part of our gift to other families in our extended family.
Jenni’s recipe for Povitica used walnuts. I exchanged the walnuts for pecans in my version of Povitica. The main reason I did the exchange was that I have a mild walnut allergy. I love walnuts but I can only eat a bite or two before I regret it for several days. I knew I wanted to eat the Povitica so I went with pecans. The advantage to using pecans was that I was able to compare the Povitica to my mom’s Kalachi which uses pecans!
Here are the four final loaves …
These pictures didn’t show up exactly like I wanted so I am going to just show both of them since they do show the rolls and nice crumble when they were cut!
So I see why Povitica is compared to Kalachi but they are pretty different. The dough with a filling is a similar but the process is different as the Kalachi is a long roll (like a really rustic jelly roll.) My mom’s comment that this dough even ended up different. I do have to admit I after all of this, I really want some of mom’s holiday Kalachi because it is so yummy even it does go straight to your hips!
Special thanks to my mom for letting me take over her kitchen for make this! I left her two loaves as payment!! My October has been has been crazy and the only solid block of time I had to make this recipe was when I took the kids to visit my family last Saturday so … thanks mom!
Those are so really pretty loaves! I have no clue what Kalachi is, but you had me at “dessert.”
I think it is fun that you were able compare this with what your mom makes – that must have added an extra bit of fun to the whole challenge. Your povitica looks delicious – those swirls are gorgeous!
Great job! Your povitica turned out great. It’s fun to see how many people have family traditions that are very similar to this!
I have never heard of either of those things, but that looks delicious!
so beautiful and amaizing job!! I love your povitica!
Yum – the pecans must have been a great substitution for the walnuts. Delicious!