Back to the best nut bread, recipe from mom

Fresh, home-made nut bread roll symbolizes everything fabulous about childhood because I got to savor it only twice a year: Easter and Christmas. In spring, nut bread meant dying eggs and hunting baskets and revelling amid jelly beans, chocolate bunnies, molasses or peanut butter chocolate eggs, malted chocolate balls and at least one good-sized chocolate bunny. Getting a few days free from school? A mere bonus in the warming weather.

Others in the family picked up the nut bread baking tradition with mom’s recipe for a while, but somewhere in time it felt like it faded, as busy lives turned to imitations from stores or bakeries. My niece baked her own and it was much appreciated, but to me it didn’t taste like mom’s.

And while I helped make it as a youngster I never, until this week, grabbed my copy of the old recipe card and dove into the world of crushed walnuts and sweet dough brushed with a bit of egg. Alas, I discovered deep in the process that I hadn’t copied all of the recipe, but back to that in a bit.

In fact, this wasn’t merely an exercise in cooking, it was an example of how a favorite food triggers a plethora of favorite memories, how an old recipe may serve as nexus for a wide range of warm, happy feelings from your past.

The early reviews? I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve tasted this treat so fresh, but I didn’t stop slicing and eating until half a roll vanished. That could be the old childhood bias — you know, the stuff you grew up with is the best because, well, you grew up with it and stop asking for an objective opinion! But there was a second reviewer with no such potential bias.

When MT came home and had a few slices, she said without prompting, “This is the best nut bread I’ve ever tasted.”

I’m not promising you’ll agree. Like so many traditional dishes, nut bread response likely hinges on what you tasted as a kid. But for as relatively easy as this is, if you’ve never made your own, I propose it’s a good place to start.

My recollection sees mom grinding the nuts in an old, heavy “Universal” food grinder that clamped to the counter top edge. You filled the hopper on the top and turned the crank to spin an augur inside, inexorably pushing the nuts to a narrowing outlet with a rotating blade crushing them on egress. I don’t know if mom’s is still around, but MT & I inherited two of them, of different sizes, when we bought her great-aunt Rosa’s house upon the grand lady’s passing.

I actually pulled one up from a basement shelf, scoured it with a soap pad, lightly ran over the insides with a sandpaper wheel on my Dremel and rinsed vigorously before air drying. A photo is included to remind people of what “food processor” meant in the past. I even ran a hopper or two full of walnuts through it.

It was missing the interchangeable rotating blade that holds everything snugly together while controlling how fine a grind you get, but I still used it a bit, ultimately doing the bulk of the work in a contemporary food processor. You can make it as fine or coarse as you like. Just remember it has to be small enough and uniform enough to spread, and to roll up in the dough.

I rolled the first half of the dough much thinner than the second half, which made spreading the fill a bit trickier, which takes me to that missing part of the recipe.

With dough and filling made, I realized my instructions offered no size for the dough roll out, no oven temperature, and no cooking time. I assumed (in order) about foot by 8 inches, 350° and maybe 20 minutes. I had a vague memory that mom brushed the dough with something, but I was thinking butter.

I checked a few recipes online and found the first two guesses spot on, but the coating in mom’s recipe is egg whisked with a little milk. Not remembering that, I had just used an egg white.

Because the one dough had been rolled so thin I cold see some nuts poking up, I gave the rolls about an hour to rise a second time. The original recipe does not call for a second proofing.

Two last examples of how old this recipe is: My copy calls for “cake yeast” (yeast that came in cakes), and for “Spry,” a brand of shortening I’ve not seen in decades and didn’t even remember existed until this week.

Now to look for those Universal food grinder attachable blades …

Happy Easter, fond memories of Easters past,

And Dobru Chut!

Nut Bread Roll (makes 2 rolls)

The dough:

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt (optional, I didn’t add it)

4 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon shortening

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1 pack dry yeast (about 2 teaspoons)

The filling:

1 pound ground nuts (we always used walnuts)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup warmed (“scalded”) milk

To make the dough, combine the flour, sugar, salt, butter and shortening and mix well. Add egg, milk and yeast and mix well. Knead, adding flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Let raise 90 minutes. Meanwhile, make the filling.

Heat milk, add sugar to dissolve, then add the ground nuts. Cook until thick, then set aside to cool.

After dough has risen, heat oven to 350° and divide dough in half. Roll out one half, to about 8-9 inches by 12-14 inches. Spread half the filling evenly, leaving some dough exposed along all edges. Roll the dough length wise, making the cross section a bit oblong (rather than round). Place on cookie sheets (two rolls to one sheet is usually fine) and brush with an egg white, or a whole egg beaten with a little milk. Bake about 20 minutes.