Prekmurska Gibanica (Slovenian Layered Strudel Cake)
Difficulty 4/5 Ingredients 31 Steps 25
Prekmurska gibanica is a pastry similar to Strudel, with poppy seeds, curd cheese, walnuts, and apples. It is a national specialty of Slovenia.
Ingredients
Strudel dough
- 500 g flour
- 40 g sunflower seed oil
- 200–300 ml lukewarm water
- Salt
Short pastry dough (base)
- 150 g flour
- 100 g solid fat (e.g. butter or margarine)
- 1 egg yolk
- 50 g icing sugar
- 1 pack of vanilla sugar
Walnut filling
- 250 g ground walnuts
- 80 g white granulated sugar
- Ground cinnamon
- Grated lemon peel
Curd cheese filling
- 80 g raisins
- Rum
- 1000 g full-fat curd cheese (e.g. quark, pot cheese, or farmer cheese)
- 1 egg
- 100 g white granulated sugar
- Salt
- 1 pack vanilla sugar
Poppy seed filling
- 150 g ground poppy seeds
- 80 g white granulated sugar
- Ground cinnamon
- Grated lemon peel
Apple filling
- 1 kg apples
- 100 g white granulated sugar
- Ground cinnamon
Assembly
- Vegetable oil
- 700 ml sour cream
- 2 eggs or 3 egg yolks, mixed well
- 250 g butter, cut in very small cubes
Steps
Strudel dough
- Sift flour onto a working surface. Make a well in the middle. Add a pinch of salt, oil and water. Mix.
- Knead about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic.
- Shape into a ball. Coat with oil, cover, and rest 30 minutes on a floured board.
Short pastry dough
- Sift flour onto a working surface. Make a well in the middle.
- Add butter, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla sugar. Knead together quickly.
Walnut filling
- Combine ground walnuts, sugar, vanilla sugar and cinnamon thoroughly.
Curd cheese filling
- Soak raisins in rum until softened.
- Mash curd cheese. Mix in egg, vanilla sugar, sugar, some salt and grated lemon peel until the filling spreads well.
- Mix in softened raisins.
Poppy seed filling
- Combine ground poppy seeds, sugar, vanilla sugar, cinnamon and grated lemon peel thoroughly.
Apple filling
- Peel and slice apples.
- Mix apples with sugar and cinnamon.
Assembly
- Combine sour cream and eggs.
- Grease baking mould well. Roll out short pastry dough, line the base of the mould, and prick gently with a fork.
- Stretch strudel dough out. Brush with oil.
- Pull strudel dough thinly over the mould, thick edges hanging down. Cut off edges to make 8 equal sheets.
- Place first strudel sheet on the short pastry. Spread with some poppy seed filling. Spread some sour cream mixture on top. Dot with a few pieces of butter.
- Place second sheet on top. Spread with some curd cheese filling. Top with sour cream mixture and butter pieces.
- Cover with next sheet. Spread with some walnut filling. Top with sour cream mixture and butter.
- Add fourth sheet. Spread with apple filling. Top with sour cream mixture and butter. Gibanica is half-assembled.
- Repeat steps 5 through 8 until there are 8 uniform layers.
- Cover with a sheet of strudel dough, pulled over the edge of the mould. Top with butter and sour cream mixture.
- Prick gibanica with a long needle. Bake in pre-heated oven at 175°C, about 75 minutes.
- Coat with sour cream. Cool a little.
- Cut into triangles. Sprinkle with icing sugar. Serve.
Notes from the original
- You can also assemble the individual layers of the gibanica in a different order. The only important point is that moist (curd cheese, apple) and drier (poppy seed, walnut) fillings should alternate.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Prekmurska Gibanica (Slovenian Layered Strudel Cake)” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-10-26, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.