Even though I am not a big fan of winter, there is one big reason why I do look forward to it. Nuts! Walnuts to be precise. Where I come from the walnut is a staple ingredient in pastry. In Croatia, we use the humble walnut in a lot of things ranging from liqueurs to pastry. Many wonderful desserts can be made with this nut and while I do love cookies, ice cream and pies this simple, sweet bread is my all time favourite. This vegan povitica makes a stunning centrepiece for any party and is so very easily made.
As a child, I used to dip it into hot chocolate, and I could eat it for every meal of the day. Now that I am a grown up I still can not get enough of it! While the traditional version is filled with walnuts, sugar, and butter, you can do whatever you want. There are many variations of this as you can swap around ingredients as much as you like.
There are also different ways of rolling your povitica. While some prefer a perfectly rolled swirl, others like to have more of a random ripple effect. This is the only thing people tend to argue about, and it is hilarious. I guess every country has this one food topic on which people just can not find common ground. I noticed that here in England too – with scones. The debate weather you should use jam or clotted cream first is a never ending one.
I am somewhat stuck in between. I love the loosely rolled swirl. It allows for thick little clusters of nutty, sweet goodness once you cut it into slices. Perfectly and firmly rolled swirls tend to produce a rather dull eating experience in my opinion, while the loosely rolled ripples fall apart too much. As you can see, a lot of time can be spent thinking on how to roll this; it’s serious business! Ha!
In any case, there is one thing you can not argue about. The simplicity of this dish is what makes it so genius. It looks so decadent and tastes wonderfully delicious, but it is so straightforward to make. It needs only a few ingredients that are not hard to come by, and those are inexpensive as well. If you never had a povitica before you should definitely make one. It is one of those dishes that I believe everyone should taste at least once in their life.
- for the dough:
- 175ml (3/4 cup) almond milk, or any of your choice
- 300g (2cups) all purpose flour
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 vanilla pod, scraped
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 4 tbsp warm water
- 1½ tsp dry yeast
- for the filling:
- 300g (2 cups) walnut halves
- 6 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp cocoa
- 125ml (1/2 cup) almond milk
- for the topping:
- 1 tbsp melted coconut oil
- 2 tsp sugar
- Pour the cashew milk, 3 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp coconut oil and the scraped out part of a vanilla pod into a small saucepan. If you want you can put the vanilla pod in there as well for extra flavour. Heat the mixture gently until all is combined evenly, take the vanilla pod if you added it and let it cool down to room temperature.
- To prepare the yeast add 4 tbsp of water and 1 tsp sugar. Mix well and let it rest until it's slightly foamy - usually around 5 minutes, it should be ready by the time the milk mixture has cooled down.
- Pour all dough ingredients in to a mixing bowl and knead well, add just enough extra flour until it stops being sticky. The dough should be really soft and bounce back when lightly poked. Form a ball out of the dough, dust it with some flour and cover it with a cloth. Let it rest for 1.5 hours in a warm place. It should at least double in size.
- Place the walnuts, cocoa powder and sugar in, a food processor and pulse for a few seconds until all is evenly combined and resembles fine, dark sand. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the milk. Mix it in by hand. Resist the urge to pout the milk into the food processor you will end up with a large dough like lump that is impossible to spread.
- Once the dough has risen make sure you have a large surface to work on. I usually use the dining table for rolling out the dough. Dust the table lightly with flour and place the dough into the center. Gently roll it out into a huge circle with about 1m (40inch) in diameter. It should be as thin as possible. Make sure that it does not stick to the table. Add a little bit of flour if necessary but use it sparingly.
- Spread the filling evenly onto the dough and roll it up. Place the dough roll into a lightly greased baking form and let it rest for another 15 minutes at room temperature. There is no real rule when it comes to placing the dough into a form. You can do that which ever way you like and every time you bake this bread you will, have a different pattern - which can be fun.
- Brush the dough with the topping and bake it in a preheated oven for 10 minutes at 180°C (350°F) . Lower the temperature to 150°C (300°F) and bake for another 40-45 minutes.
How much flour please? It’s not in the ingredient list.
Well, that’s embarrassing. It’s 300g (2cups) of all purpose flour. Thank you ever so much for pointing it out. Happy new year! =D – Love, G.
Thanks very much. It turned out brilliantly! Happy New Year 🙂
I am so glad it did! Thank you for sharing. – Love, G.
The traditional version filled with walnuts, sugar, and butter sounds absolutely amazing. This sweet bread looks and sounds super mouth-watering!
Now this looks SOOOO GOOD!!! I have a couple of friends who are vegan so this would be a perfect treat to make when they come over.
I’ve never had this kind of bread before! It surely sounds delicious. I will have to find a way to make it gluten free! ❤
I love walnuts and this recipes looks delicious! I plan to try this and substitute gluten-free flour. Like the swirls, too.
Oh my goodness, this looks incredible! I do love sweet breads, so I will have to try this one out!
I’m not a big fan of walnuts but that looks so delicious that I’m going to try it anyway!
Can I try this with bread flour?…
Hello Dorothy,
I am utterly sorry for the late reply. I had big issues with my host. You can definitely try this with bread flour, the consistency will be slightly different but it does work. I have done it before when I ran out of all-purpose flour.
Love, G.
The dough requires milk-is this supposed to be a non-dairy milk? I thought the recipe was vegan.
Hello Samantha, it is vegan. I didn’t specify because any non-dairy milk works for the dough. I edited the recipe card to avoid confusion in the future. Thanks for the question. – Love, G.