Since founding Cricket Flours, we are always crafting new recipes and dishes to incorporate cricket protein for a great source of protein and nutrition. Recently we sponsored the first Cricket Cook-Off in Portland, Oregon, where local home chefs and professional chefs used crickets to create new dishes. We invited those chefs to share some of their award winning recipes on our Cricket Flours website for you to try out home!
For this featured Cricket Flours recipe, it is based on a delectable nut roll recipe adapted from a Croatian family recipe called Povitica and is pronounced, “poh-vee-TEET-sa.” Povitica is incredibly hard to find in the States, and our guest Cricket Flours Chef Fritz Kutchko, first learned his craft from bakers in Strawberry Hill, a Slavic neighborhood in Kansas City, KS. Featuring a buttery yeast dough swirled with crushed walnuts (and now nutty cricket flour!), this holiday sweet bread is a stand-out.
Chirp Povitica
by Fritz Kutchko
Makes 2 large or 4 small loaves.
Ingredients:
DOUGH
1/2 c water
1 1/2 T sugar
1 package yeast
3/4 c whole milk, scalding
1/2 c sugar
1/2 T salt
1/4 c butter
2 T canola oil
2 eggs, beaten
4-5 c flour
dash cloves
dash nutmeg
FILLING
1 1/4 c milk
2 c sugar
1/2 c butter
1/4 c honey
3 eggs, beaten
2 1/4 lbs walnuts, finely crushed
1 1/2 c cricket flour
1 T vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
dash cloves
dash cardamom
melted butter
Instructions
- Activate yeast in warm water / sugar slurry. Set aside. Let foam for 5-10 min.
- Start the dough. Using a large pot on medium heat, whisk 1/2 c sugar into 3/4 scalding whole milk. Add salt, butter and oil. Take off heat and let cool slightly.
- Whisk 2 eggs, beaten, into the yeast slurry. Add this to the milk mixture.
- Beat in spices and 4-5 cups of flour. Dough should barely stick to hands.
- On floured surface, knead dough for 3-4 minutes. Let rest. Knead again for 3-4 minutes, shaping into a ball. Dough should be much smoother and more elastic now. Oil a mixing bowl, flip the dough over inside it to oil the top, cover with damp tea towel and place inside a cold oven with a bowl of hot water on the rack beneath it. Let rise until doubled in size (usually 1-3 hours).
- Punch dough down and knead a second time. Place back in oiled bowl in cold oven, let rise again until doubled in size.
- Make the filling: Over medium heat, whisk sugar into milk. Add butter and simmer gently for a minute. Take off heat and stir in honey, eggs, vanilla, crushed walnuts, cricket flour, spices and salt. Let cool.
- Flour a large flat surface. Take dough from oven, punch down, and divide in two. Roll each half out as thinly as possible in a large rectangle. Sprinkle extra flour as needed. The dough should be just shy of breaking, almost translucent. Brush lightly with melted butter. Using a spatula or the back of a spoon, spread nut paste in a thin but consistent layer from edge to edge. Starting at the center of one end, roll dough as tightly as possible into a long cylinder.
- Transfer to two buttered 10″x5″ pans (or four smaller pans). Coil the dough in an “S” shape and tuck both ends on the underside of the roll. Brush top with melted butter. (You can also use beaten egg whites or strong black coffee, raw sugar and spices!) Let rise for 15-60 min, but not so much that it overflows the pan.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake for 15 min. Drop temperature to 300-325 degrees F and bake for 35-45 min. To prevent over-browning, tent with foil or butter top as needed. Bread is done when it is a deep golden brown, a toothpick pulls out clean, and it starts to pull away at the edges.
- Let cool completely before removing from pan. Turn loaf upside down, slice with serrated knife and serve!
Best the day after. Keeps for 1 week at room temperature or 2 weeks in the fridge.
Check out more recipes from our Cricket Flours Guest Chefs from the Cricket Cook-Off in Portland, Oregon