Grandma Boskay’s Best Nut Roll

Directions

In large bowl combine yeast, salt, 1 cup flour, and sugar.

In 1 qt. saucepan over low heat, heat milk, butter until very warm (120-130 degrees). Butter does not need to melt completely. Stir vanilla into milk mixture.

With mixer at low speed gradually beat liquid into dry ingredients just until blended. Increase speed of mixer to medium and beat two minutes, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Beat in eggs and 1 cup flour to make thick batter. Continue beating two minutes scraping bowl often. Add final 2 ½ cups flour to make soft dough.

Turn dough onto floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic about 10 minutes working in more flour while kneading. You can also use the dough hook at this point instead of kneading for ten minutes. Dough will be sticky and hard to remove from the bowl.

Knead the dough 4-5 times to shape dough into ball. Then place the ball of dough in a greased large bowl turning dough to grease top. Cover with a clean towel and let rise in warm place (80 to 85 degrees) until doubled in size about 1 ½ hours.

Meanwhile prepare nut filling. In a 3 qt. saucepan over low heat, heat honey, sugar, milk, and butter, until butter melts and mixture is smooth. Remove saucepan from heat, stir in ground walnuts and then eggs, lemon rind, and vanilla until well blended and set aside.

When dough has doubled in size, punch the dough down. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, cut into quarters, reshape dough into rounds and cover and let rest for 10 minutes.

Grease two large cookie sheets. Cover ¾ of the dough with a plastic wrap or clean towel. With a floured rolling pin roll ¼ of the dough into a large rectangle. With a spatula or kitchen tablespoon spread ¼ of walnut mixture evenly over top of dough, leaving ½ inch border around the edge. From the long side of the dough roll it jelly-roll fashion but loosely so that the filling won’t leak while baking. Pinch the seam and ends to seal. Place seam side down on the cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining dough and walnut mixture. Cover nut rolls with a towel and let them rise again until doubled, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cookie sheets on oven racks and bake 30 minutes until golden brown, switching cookie sheets between the upper and lower baking racks half way through baking, covering the rolls with foil if they begin browning too quickly.

Brush the top of the rolls with melted butter for an attractive sheen. Cool rolls on racks slightly to serve warm. Cool completely on racks to serve later. Makes 4 rolls, 12 servings each.