Pinca, the queen of Croatian Easter table. Sweet, soft and delicious sweet bread you’ll want to bake throughout the year! This one, in veganversion. Let the Easter begin!
Rare is the Easter table in Croatia without Pinca, traditional Croatian Easter Bread. Pinca or Sirnica it’s called. The C in Pinca is pronounced like TZ, like in tzatziki or tzar and not K like Inka.
Anyhow! Traditional Pinca is loaded with eggs, milk and butter and one of the first things that I veganized was this exact sweet bread. Why? Because since I went vegan and especially now, during the holidays, I don’t want to eat “obscurities” simply because they are vegan. I want tastes, textures and scents of my childhood. I’m not giving that up!
Hence there is all the bread I baked, hence there is Mađarica, another undeniably all around holiday dessert on entire Balkan. All veganized, all tasting exactly the same, all bringing me back to my Grandma’s kitchen.
And a little fact that I didn’t crush half of the chicken coop worth of eggs in it, makes it even more delicious!
PINCA – CROATIAN EASTER BREAD – VEGAN
200 ml tepid milk
1 tbsp instant yeast or 20 g fresh yeast
120 g sugar or
pinch of salt
80
500 g flour
2 – 3 tbsp
a handful of raisins or some other dried fruit in small pieces
a few sugar cubes for
vegan butter, margarine or coconut oil for oiling the mould
Pour the milk in the bowl that you’ll be using for this recipe. Add yeast and sugar and stir gently to dissolve. Add the rest of the ingredients except raisins and rum – pour the rum over the raisins in a small bowl and leave it until the dough has risen.
Make the dough – use a wooden spoon or a hand mixer. The dough can be sticky and not behaving as you would like but don’t add more flour. Knead it for a few mins and then cover it with a lid or a cloth and let rise for a nice hour. It won’t rise much because it’s oily and heavy but it’s fine.
Spread butter evenly and thinly over a baking mould – a little cake form should do, or if you don’t have it, you can just make a ball and bake it like that on an ordinary baking sheet.
Add raisins and rum to the dough and knead for a few mins so they spread through the dough evenly. Transfer the dough in the mould and leave to rise for another 30 mins. During that time, start your oven to heat up to 180°C / 375F.
Before baking, with a sharp knife, scissors or something similar, make two slits on the top of the Pinca, in the form of the cross. That will make a “crown” on it during baking and rising more. Also, take that sugar cubes, crush them in half and press
Bake Vegan Pinca for a nice 35 mins or a little more. It should be golden brown on top and the bottom. More brown than golden, to be precise, but not burnt, and when you press it gently, it should spring back.
When baked, take the Pinca gently out on the cooling rack and leave to cool completely before serving.
Serve with tea or coffee, sprinkled with powdered sugar and lots of love!
*You can also bake this cake in a regular, bread loaf tin. Pinca is traditionally round in shape and decorated with sugar cubes but you can easily bake it as a coffee cake or sweet bread. Pinca won’t mind! 🙂
PIN THIS PINCA FOR LATER!
