poppy

Prekmurska gibanica is an interesting combination of cake and pastry, and hails originally from the Prekmurje region of Slovenia. It restates a favorite theme in central European baking -- the layered sweet strudel, often with poppy seeds involved (as in this variation) and stuffed with sweet jams, fruit or fruit compotes, nuts, and/or dairy products (in this case cottage cheese).

Some descriptions of Prekmurska gibanica describe it as a pie. This is probably because of the bottom layer, which is sometimes made of shortcrust pastry -- possibly a remnant from the earliest versions of the dish, which were devised before refined sugar was available. Honey would have been the only sweetening in those versions, and a more solid bottom layer (more solid than strudel dough, anyway) might have made sense.

Those versions of Prekmurska gibanica also included dried grapes as one of the main constituents of the filling. The present version, however, uses cottage cheese, poppy seed, walnut and apples, and the dried grapes (in the form of raisins) turn up as part of the cottage cheese filling, having been first soaked in rum. This version of the recipe is well enough known and liked in Slovenia to have been declared one of the fifty national "birthday cakes" for the European Union's 50th birthday celebrations in 2007. It's so popular that it appears on one of the country's stamps!

Click on "read more" for the recipe...