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When Pope Francis made a quip about potica to Melania Trump, the world collectively wondered: “What the heck is that?”. Well, the world, minus the people of Slovenia, for whom potica is a ubiquitous, beloved baked good, the national pastry. Pronounced poh-tee-tzah, this dessert is baked by grannies throughout the country on just about any holiday.
At its core, it’s a pastry made by spreading a mixture of sweetened ground walnuts over the yeasted dough, then coiling this tightly and baking it, traditionally in the form of a ring, using a sort of terracotta Bundt pan called a potičnica, though it can also be baked in straight loaves. It is served sliced, with the cross-section showing off the spiral marbling of the filling in the dough.
What is Slovenian potica
The traditional version is filled with sweetened, ground walnuts (with raisins optional), and it is not uncommon to find a variety which swaps out walnuts for poppy seeds, hazelnuts, chocolate, or even tarragon (an odd but intriguing mélange of savory and sweet). Turns out that’s just the start. There are many savory options (filled with cracklings, sausage, lovage, chives) and the sweet sorts seem endless: coconut, clotted cream, dried fruit, chestnut, pumpkin seed, even carob, if we’re going to get crazy.
What makes them all potica is the format. Potica evolved from a variety of central European (largely Habsburg imperial) traditions, starting with a narrow ring-shaped kolač, the tightly-coiled povitica, and the pie-like pogača. Potica started to look like potica, a thick ring baked in the Slovenian relative of the Bundt pan, in the 16th century. It is related to, but distinct from, Austrian pastries like šarkelj and Gugelhupf, both of which are as much fun to eat as they are to say.
The best Slovenian potica recipe
Step one is to mix the dough. I don’t have a proper mixer, so I have to use the handheld variety, which results in frequent projectile flour, eggs, and batter around my kitchen. I press on. The dough rises and I roll it out, as I’ve seen my relatives do, on the dining room table, stretching the dough over a tablecloth.
The filling—I’m going with traditional ground walnuts studded with raisins—is easier to make, but I’m already cutting corners. My relatives buy whole walnuts, crack them, and smash the delicious insides with rolling pins. I buy pre-ground walnuts, and I’m quickly scolded, as these have likely been sitting, out of their shell, for so long that they are unpleasantly aged. Hm. Not a good sign. But I sauté them in honey, milk, run, butter and lemon zest, which I figure should hide a multitude of sins.
I spread the filling out evenly across the dough, which has been rolled so broadly that it really does cover our dining room table. Now comes the balletic part: I use the tablecloth to roll the potica from the edge to the center, lifting the cloth so the dough curls in and over the filling, spiraling it until I’ve got a very long coiled tube that looks like a pastry python (and weighs about as much).
In display in my kitchen I have a potičnica made by master ceramicist Francel Kremžar, which I have always thought of as primarily decorative. A beautiful, terracotta object, it hadn’t really occurred to me to actually use it for, you know, baking. But here I go, lifting (with the assistance of others) the potica python and placing it into the greased potičnica. Then into the oven.
When it comes out, I’m nervous. It looks great, but I’m waiting for the ceiling to collapse. It does not. The result is a solid effort.
Where to find Slovenian potica
A popular souvenir for visitors to Ljubljana, Le Potica makes adorable, single-serving miniature versions of the pastry, in many flavors, wrapped in a lovely gift box. Even in the US you can find some bakeries that prepare them, based on recipes from Slovenian immigrant relatives—the Sunrise Bakery in Hibbing, Minnesota makes an excellent version, in loaf form. But the best I’ve tried (with apologies to my relatives) came as a gift, when I gave a talk, not long ago, in the village of Ribnica, Slovenia. The venue was Skrabceva Domacija, the Skrabec Homestead, owned by one of Slovenia’s most successful businessmen, Janez Skrabec. As a thank-you for having spoken there, I was given a potica, in a potičnica (so I could use the container to bake more in the future). The pastry was amazing, and I could taste the patience and love of a mother in each bite.
Turns out the mother in question was my host’s mother-in-law, but there’s no rule that you have to be related to the baker to enjoy the fruits of their labors, is there?
Are you looking for more dishes from Slovenia? Find out 5 indigenous Slovenian products you should know about.
Otherwise, if you're interested in traditional cakes, why don't you take a look at this selection of 10 of the best British cakes or at delicious Chinese New Year cakes?
