Christians around the world celebrate the biggest and most important Christian Holiday this weekend. Many Slovenes celebrate it traditionally, with their families and friends, and not to forget a lot of delicious food. Horseradish, eggs, ham and Potica are a must.
Potica plays a vital role in our traditional holiday meal. Potica is one of Slovenia’s most renowned sweets and has a great significance for every Slovene because it is tightly connected with every big holiday or tradition in Slovenia. For example we bake it for Easter, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, etc.
Potica [potitsa] was first mentioned in 16th century and the oldest known recipe was published in the end of 17th century. The name Potica as we know it today originates from earlier form of the name – “povitica”, which means something that is rolled up. Potica is a pastry made of dough and several different stuffings. More than 80, in fact. One of the most renowned and popular is walnut stuffing. Other also very popular stuffings are poppy seeds stuffing, honey stuffings, tarragon stuffing, coconut stuffing or even pork fat / cracklings stuffing. It is not even necessary Potica to have sweet stuffing, actually you can make Potica stuffing out of almost anything you can think of.
The recipe for potica is really not as complicated as one would think. It’s just that there are so many fine details that you have to pay attention to, that not every Potica comes out perfect. I always follow the same recipe written by Marija Ilc, a nun, also known as Sister Vendelina. So, I follow the recipe word-by-word and I am quite happy with the result, although maybe in the eyes of the specialist it might not be perfect. But it looks nice and it is more than delicious.
Take a look at the photos below to see the process and the final result