Looking for a recipe that will bring back childhood memories or implant new ones? Let’s try nut rolls to make good ones!

Ingredients

(makes 4 rolls)

Dough

1 tablespoon / 10g Fresh yeast
½ cup / 100g Milk
8 cups / 1000g Flour (if there is pastry flour available use half pastry flour half normal)
4 sticks / 400g Butter
3 tablespoon / 50g honey or sweetener of choice
4 medium / 200g Eggs
2 tablespoons / 30g Sour cream or Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt

Walnut filling

3½ cup / 400g Walnut or any other nut (finely crushed)
7 tablespoons / 100g Honey or sweetener of choice
¾ cup / 100g Raisin
1 medium / 15g Zest of lemon
1 tablespoon / 15g Vanilla extract
1 tablespoon / 15g Rum extract (optional)
⅘ cup / 200g Milk

Poppy seed filling

4 cups / 400g Poppy seed (ground)
7 tablespoons / 100g Honey or sweetener of choice
¾ cup / 100g Raisins
1 medium / 15g Lemon zest
1 tablespoon / 15g Vanilla extract
⅘ cup / 200g Milk

Baking

2 medium / 100g Egg for egg-wash

How to make nut rolls

Dough

Knead flour, butter, honey or sweetener of choice, yeast and milk. Work in the egg yolks, sour cream and salt too and dough until getting an even texture.
Put dough into a big bowl with a lid on top and let it rise in a 68°F – 81°F /20°C – 27°C place.

Walnut filling

Mix ground walnut, honey, raisin, lemon zest, vanilla, rum extract and milk together.
On medium to low heat, bring the milk to boil while stirring continuously. Take it off the heat and wait until it cools down otherwise it will ruin the dough.

Poppy seed filling

Poppy seed doesn’t always come ground. In fact most often than not we have to grind it.
If we don’t have a special poppy seed grinder or something that is able to grind the already small pieces into dust then we have to use our trusty spices grinder. If we have used it for grinding coffee beans, make sure that it is clean before trying our luck with the poppy seeds! Unfortunately, the spices grinder doesn’t really do a great job either, so we probably need to grind the poppy seeds twice to get them fine and black without much whitish specks.
Mix ground poppy seed, honey, raisins, lemon zest, vanilla and milk together in a saucepan.
On medium to low heat bring the milk to boil in low temperature while stirring continuously. Take it off the heat and cool it down otherwise it will ruin the dough.

Assembly

Dust the work surface with flour then divide the dough into 4 parts.
Work with one piece at a time, roll out the dough into a ⅛” / 3mm high rectangular shape, the length of our baking tray.
Choose the first filling and fill half of it along one of the long side of the dough. Mind to leave an empty stripe on one side otherwise the dough can’t be closed properly.
Roll the dough up.
Repeat the process with the remaining dough and filling.
Place them onto a buttered or parchment papered baking tray. Brush the top with egg-wash and punch holes alongside with a fork.
Place them into a 350°F / 180°C preheated oven for about an hour (330°F / 165°C for convection ovens). After about an hour, it should come out with a golden brown top and tantalizing smell. Don’t resist it!

Enjoy!

All desserts are equal but some are more equal then the others. The more equal ones are the ones that we use to dress up our heart with, while waiting for the special times to come.