Lemberg Easter Potica

Mlinčna potica is an Easter cake from Lemberg pri Šmarju, a small village of 200 people in Slovenia. It is a unique type of a layered cake with a rich egg and walnut filling that is wrapped in an outer layer of yeast dough. This variation of potica is only made at Easter.

The recipe below is an adaptation of the original recipe by Anika Lorenčak, which uses 40 eggs to make the filling and is made with big families and gatherings in mind. Anika received the recipe from her mother, Cecilija Svetelšek, who is assumed to have learned it from cooks that worked in a villa owned by Bertha von Suttner (1843−1914). Women of the Lorenčak family have been baking this potica for decades and I was lucky enough to learn of it from the daughter of Anika Lorenčak, Marja Kiker Lorenčak. Marja also made sure that the Lemberg Easter Potica was accepted into the Slovenia Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

To learn more about potica in general, read Is it pizza? No, it’s potica!.

The original recipe by Anika Lorenčak

Recipe

Ingredients for a potica of diameter 25 cm:

Dough

• 500 g flour

• 10 g instant yeast

• 40 g butter

• 75 g sugar

• 2 egg yolks

• 250 ml milk

• 1 tbsp rum

• zest of 1 lemon

• a pinch of salt

• 1 egg for the egg wash

Filling

• 375 g ground walnuts*+500 ml milk

• 200 g bread rolls (with a hard crust)

• 10 eggs+500 ml milk

• 200 g sugar

• 50 ml heavy cream

• 50 ml sour cream

• zest of 1 lemon

• 50 ml spiced rum

• 2 tsp vanilla paste or vanilla essence

• raisins soaked in rum (optional)

Instructions:

Dough

1. In a bowl, combine flour and yeast.

2. Heat the milk, sugar, and butter in a sauce pan until butter is melted.

3. Add lemon zest and rum to the milk mixture and stir well.

4. Once the milk mixture is sufficiently cool, add the 2 egg yolks, and mix.

5. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture, mix a little and then add salt. Knead by hand or using a mixer until the dough is soft and elastic. It should not stick to your hands. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size (about 40 minutes).

Filling

6. Heat the oven to 200C (390 F).
7. Mix 500 ml of milk and 10 eggs.
8. Butter a large, deep baking pan.
9. Chop bread rolls finely. I used the food processor for this step.
10. Mix the egg mixture with the finely chopped bread rolls and pour into the buttered baking pan.
11. Bake for 1 hour.

Chopped bread rolls.

Baked egg and bread mixture.

12. Boil 500 ml of milk and pour it over ground walnuts.
13. Mix the bread and egg mixture with walnuts and add the remaining ingredients for the filling: sugar, heavy cream, sour cream, lemon zest, rum, and vanilla paste. If the filling is too runny, add some cookie crumbs.

Making mlinci (dough layers)

14. Heat the oven to 200C (390 F).
15. Take one half of the dough (it is best to weigh it) and divide that one half into 4 pieces.
16. Roll out each piece into a disk of diameter slightly smaller than 25 cm. These are called mlinci in Slovenian.

17. Bake each sheet of dough for about 10 minutes or until golden brown.
18. Wrap mlinci into a linen cloth.

Assembling

19. Heat the oven to 200C (390 F).
20. Take the remaining half of the dough. From this take a little bit of dough that will be used to decorate potica in the end (it is not really necessary, but it will make potica look prettier); not more dough than fits into one hand.
21. Roll out the remaining dough as depicted below. This will be used to wrap the potica in the end.
22. Take the filling and divide it into 6. It is best to weigh it to ensure that all the layers have the same thickness.
23. Spread one sixth of the filling over part of the dough the size of one disk of diameter 25 cm. If using raisins, sprinkle them over each layer.

24. Put one mlinec on top and then again spread one sixth of the filling. Continue until you use all the mlinci.
25. Use the remaining sixth of the dough to make the filling uniform.

26. Cover all the layers with the rolled out dough. There will be a hole left.

27. Take the remaining piece of dough, divide it into two and shape each piece into a strand. Shape into a spiral as shown below.
28. Place the braid on top of the potica around the hole.
29. Prick the potica with a toothpick to eliminate air pockets.
30. Use some toothpicks to attach the dough to the layered cake inside.
31. Gently brush the potica with an egg wash.

32. Bake for an hour. After 30 minutes cover the potica with aluminum foil, so that the top won't brown too much.
33. Let cool.
34. Cut into slices and serve!