Pinca - Croatian Easter Sweet Bread

Pinca/Pinza, this sweet bread is baked in Croatia especially during Easter holidays. Traditionally baked with loads of eggs, this bread will be super rich, soft and beautifully flavoured bread, obviously which will definitely tickle your tastebuds. Though earlier lard is used in this bread, nowadays Pinca is made with a butter and flavored with either with citrus zest or with orange zest, along with candied or dried fruits with some rum or rose water. Obviously this bread is a must for Easter table as Pinca remained as centrepiece of most of the Croatian Easter breakfast table. Pinca is often taken to Easter mass for blessings which is later given as a symbol of good wishes.

I bookmarked this flavourful Croatian bread from Namratha's Finger Licking Food while we were running our April Mega blogging marathon. Since i love to try different breads from different cuisines, i couldnt resist to bookmark this bread from Namratha's space. Trust me, this bread smells too good with fabulous crumb and crust. Though Namratha used egg in her bread, i completely skipped it as i ran out of eggs. But trust me, we didnt missed the egg in this bread. I simply replaced 3tablespoon of the egg yolks with yogurt and this works awesome as well. Am running this week's blogging marathon with Mega BM Bookmarked as theme, and this Pinca goes for this theme.

2+1/2cups All purpose flour
1cup Luke warm milk
1tsp Instant yeast
1/2cup Sugar
75grams Butter
1tsp Orange zest
1tsp Lemon zest
3tbsp Yogurt
1/2tsp Vanilla extract
Milk (for brushing)

Take the flour and butter in a bowl, beat them until both the ingredients gets mixed.

Meanwhile beat the vanilla extract, sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl, now add this mixture to the flour mixture.

Add the orange zest, lemon zest and yeast now, slowly add the luke warm milk and knead everything as a smooth and soft dough.

Transfer the dough to a greased bowl, wrap it and keep aside for atleast 2 hours.

Once doubled, punch down the dough and divide into 4 equal balls. Shaped them as bun and place them on a baking sheet lined baking tray.

Cover and let it rise for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Brush the buns with enough milk and slash the top with a knife to form a cross.

Bake for 20-25minutes until the top turns golden brown.

Let it cool completely. Enjoy with your favourite drink or spread.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM.