Holiday Nut Bread

Each holiday season my grandmother made walnut bread. It's part of what makes a the holiday a family time.

My grandmother was a fabulous cook but not so great at writing recipes. Her recipe book was a list of ingredients, nothing else. Unfortunately, none of her children were fabulous cooks so the recipes were lost because there weren't amounts or mixing directions.

One reason I love the internet is because lost things can be found. I think I've found her Walnut bread recipe. At least this is the recipe I will create this year, maybe tweak it a little to make it closer to what I remember. I am thrilled. And if I make it half as good as grandma did, everyone else should be thrilled to enjoy this nut bread too.

For the dough

500 g flour

250 g butter

50 g sugar

2 eggs

20 g fresh yeast

1 dl milk

Pinch of salt

For the walnut filling

300 g minced walnut

200 g sugar

1 vanilla sugar

50 g raisin

Zest of lemon

1 grated apple

2 tblsp honey

1 dl milk

Dissolve the yeast with a pinch of sugar in 100 ml of lukewarm milk and let set. Mix the flour, butter egg and sugar in bowl. Add yeast mixture and knead until dough is medium soft. Once the dough is smooth, divide into 2 large loafs or 4 small loafs. Cover with foil and let them rest in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Prepare the filling. Add sugar to milk. Heat but don’t boil. Remove from heat add remaining ingredients.

Remove dough from fridge. Place on floured surface. Roll dough into rectangles to hald centimeter thick. Width to the width of the pan.

Spread the filling on the dough leaving 1/5 centimeters around the edge. Fold edges over the filling and roll dough along longer side. Spread egg yolk on top of the rolls. Let dry half hour. Spread egg white on top of rolls. Let dry for ½ hour.

Preheat to 200. Make holes in the top of the rolls with a fork. Bake 30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool before slicing.