Pogacha (Po-Gotcha) - Celebratory Bread
By: Diethood
Published: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - 9:49am

Ingredients




8 cups all purpose flour
25 grams dry yeast (3 ½ envelopes of "Fleischmann’s ¼ oz. Active Dry Yeast" packages)
1/2 cup lukewarm water
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons + 1/4 teaspos of sugar, for the dough
4 tablespooons + 1/4 teasps of oil, for the dough
1 1/2 tablespoons of sesame seeds, dried
1 tablespoon oil, used for sesame seeds to stick

Preparation

1 Combine yeast, sugar, salt and 1/2 cup lukewarm water in small bowl - let stand 15 minutes. 2 Put the flour in a large bowl; make a well in the flour and add oil and yeast mixture. Mix until dough leaves sides of bowl. Add additional flour if dough is too sticky. 3 Divide dough into 6 to 8 balls (personal preference). Inside of a round, 8 inch baking pan, put the dough balls one next to another, forming a flower; leave the dough to double in size – about 20 to 30 minutes.  4 Smooth oil over each ball of dough and arrange the sesame seeds on top of each ball.
 5 Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour.
 6 Cool on wire racks.

About


This is a celebratory bread that Macedonians (and other Balkan peoples) use to celebrate weddings, Saints patron days, baptisms, etc. I made this a few days ago for the reason that it was my grandmother's Saint's Day, St. Dimitri. 
Note: I didn't use sesame seeds this time because my one year old loves this bread, but I am afraid that she might choke on a seed. :)