Serbian Pogaca Butter Bread
Despite being a simple homemade bread, it looks great on any table, festive or not. For this recipe, I got my inspiration from the Balkan cuisine. In fact, it's called "Holiday Bread" or "Holiday Pogaca" and I noticed there are many variations and shapes. I was impressed by this particular variant, firstly, because it's truly beautiful and, of course, because of my passion for everything that's simple.
You can place the bread in the middle of the table and everyone breaks a piece from it, no need to cut it and that's the charm. And let me tell you that each piece has a soft core and beautiful layers, butter flavoured and extremely fluffy. I actually did not expect such texture.
In conclusion, I definitely recommend making this bread on festive occasions or just create occasions to enjoy something beautiful and delicious!
In a bowl, dissolve the yeast and half a teaspoon of sugar in 100ml of warm milk.
Set aside for 10-15 minutes until frothy.
Meanwhile, we prepare the rest of the ingredients. Dissolve the honey in the remaining 150ml of warm (not hot!) milk.
In a large bowl, combine together flour, eggs, milk, honey, salt, oil, vinegar and the yeast mixture.
Stir with a spatula or a spoon until the dough begins to come together.
Lightly dust with flour and knead with your hands, for about 5-10 minutes until it no longer sticks, but it's soft and elastic.
Leave the dough in the bowl in a warm place, covered with a towel, for one hour or until it doubles its size.
After this time, turn the dough out onto the table dusted with flour and divide into eight equal pieces.
Shape into balls and let rest on the table for five minutes.
Take each ball and spread out into a small rectangular sheet.
Grease with butter and overlap two sheets, one on top of the other.
Roll them up together. See how it's done in the picture, it's the length of the rectangle that we roll.
And so, from the eight balls, we get four logs, greased with butter inside.
Cut away the ends, about 3-4 cm long - we'll get eight rosettes.
Grease with butter a springform pan (28cm), lined with baking paper.
Arrange these eight rosettes in the middle of the tray.
Then cut each remaining log into 4-5 triangles.
Take them altogether and arrange in the pan around the rosettes.
Do the same with all the logs. Cut into triangles, then move to the pan. Arrange evenly.
This is our bread. Allow it to rise for 30-40 minutes, covered with a towel.
Finally, it should look like this. It rises nicely, filling up all the empty spaces.
In a bowl, beat the raw egg yolk with one tablespoon of milk.
Grease the top of the bread with this mixture.
Sprinkle over with poppy and sesame seeds, if you have and like.
Place the bread in the preheated oven at 160-170 degrees C for 40-45 minutes.
After you remove from the oven, let sit in the pan for 15 minutes.
Remove the sides of the pan. Brush with butter on top and on the sides.
Cover with a towel and allow to cool completely.
It stays just as fluffy on the first and second day. It won't last longer :)
Enjoy!
