Croatian Nut Roll
Why I Love This Recipe
This sweet yeast bread roll is typical for the country I come from (Croatia) as well as many other East European countries.
It can also be filled with ground poppy seeds, cinnamon, jams, etc.
It is traditionally prepared at Christmas time, but also all around the year.
Ingredients You'll Need
250 g bread flour
125 ml milk
50 g sugar
1 egg yolk
lemon zest
50 g butter (+ more for brushing)
12.5 g fresh yeast (or 1/2 package dry)
A pinch of salt
200 g ground walnuts
180 g caster sugar
1-2 tblspoons honey
100 ml milk
Directions
Mix the milk with the yeast and the sugar, and let it rest for about 10 minutes in a warm place.
Sift the flour with a pinch of salt into a mixing bowl, add the yeast, the finely grated lemon zest, the yolk, the melted cooled butter,
and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon, beating the dough until you can hear bubbles exploding.
Cover and keep in a warm place for about 1 hour.
Mix the ground walnuts with sugar, add honey and boiling hot milk. Mix well.
Dump the dough on a floured kneading board and roll into a 1/2 cm thick rectangle.
Brush with melted butter and then spread evenly the filling leaving about 2 cm empty border.
Start rolling yellyroll style.
Transfer the log on a greased baking pan. You can use any baking tin or loaf pan, bundt pan. I baked it in a Gugelhopf pan this time.
Cover and let rise for half an hour again.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
You can brush the log with a beaten egg, but since my upper side was going to be the bottom once it was baked, I just brushed it with oil.
Bake for about 40 minutes.
Turn onto a cooling rack. Do not cut until it's completely cold.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.
