First things first: After taking the first pass through my grandmother’s recipes, I went back to see which ones didn’t have pictures associated with them, and then which of those recipes actually looked appetizing enough to consider making. So, here we go again.
A caveat before we get started: Don’t be confused by this recipe. The options are to use either the cheese filling OR the egg white filling. To be clear, the cheese filling is the only real option.
Here’s what you’ll need:
1 Pkg. Yeast
¼ Cup Warm Water
2 Cups Flour, sifted
Pinch of Salt
¾ Cup Butter
2 Egg Yolks, beaten
¼ Cup Powdered Sugar
Egg White Filling:
2 Egg Whites
½ Cup Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla
¼ Cup Nuts, chopped
Cheese Filling:
8 oz. Cream Cheese
½ Cup Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla
¼ Cup Nuts, chopped
Dissolve yeast in warm water. In a separate bowl, mix flour and salt. Cut in butter until thoroughly combined.
Add egg yolks and dissolved yeast to flour mixture and mix with a fork until it gets too difficult and then finish mixing by hand until a dough forms.
Divide dough in half and roll each half into a 9” x 13” rectangle.
Spread with filling of choice. (Again, the only choice is the cheese filling.)
Roll up from the narrow end and place on a greased cookie sheet.
Cut lengthwise, approximately ¾ of the way through the roll.
Bake in a 375-degree oven for 20 30 minutes because nothing matters anymore.
When completely cooled, sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cut into 1/2” slices.
To make egg white filling, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Slowly add sugar and vanilla. Spread half the filling on the dough and sprinkle with chopped nuts.
To make cheese filling, beat cream cheese while adding sugar in a steady stream. Add vanilla and beat until light and fluffy.
Spread filling on dough and sprinkle with nuts.
These are damned good and I will be making them again.
Hazelnut erasure!
Not to mention all the peanut butter that graces breakfast tables, including my own. A friend of mine knows how to make these chocolate peanut butter muffins that are like eating a Halloween bag’s worth of Reese’s peanut butter cups but she gets no complaints from me.
Oh my they look delicious. And since the yeast directions are not all that “rise, punch, warm, cover shenanigans” I will try this! This looks professional, Butcher.
Um yes please!
I’m not much of a baker but everything I’ve attempted always said to use cold butter and, usually, to cut it into small chunks and fork it in to a flour mixture by hand. Do you have any idea why? I suppose I could just google this. Or better yet I have Julia Child and Martha Stewart cookbooks; I bet they have explained this and I skipped right over it. I bet when Andrew Cuomo’s ex–um, girlfriend–Sandra Lee made her infamous Kwanzaa cake she used room-temp “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” from a squeeze bottle.
That looks like way too much work for me, but if you make ’em, I’ll eat ’em.
As @elliecoo pointed out above at least you don’t have to deal with rising/punching dough, which is kind of fun to do if you’re in the mood for it, but can lead to all sorts of disasters. Ask me how I know.
@matthewcrawley…I’ll bite! How do know these things?
So many fails but I once attempted my own focaccia. It seemed ridiculously scarce and overpriced in my then-new neighborhood, where I now live, plus I had this great new kitchen and the Viking stove to play with. I followed the directions to the letter (recipe now unknown to me) and the end product was both an unappealing shade of sickly white and hard as a rock, except for the sections that were gluey and Play-Doh like. I fed some of it to Faithful Hound, who was a puppy at the time, and he seemed to enjoy gnawing on it. He also has a cast-iron stomach, bless.
That’s one of the reasons why I was astonished to learn some years later that so many Americans turned to breadmaking during the pandemic lockdowns. At least 95% of the end product must have been thrown away, which only served to heighten the temporary flour and yeast shortages we had.
I am a failure at yeast bread.
I saw the Bohemian Nut Slices back in ’99 at the Filmore! Great show!
Did you ever see Drimble Wedge and the Vegetation?
I have now!
If you made the egg white filling with chopped almonds, you’d have the standard pastry filling that my Hungarian great aunts and uncles loved.
I could happily never eat that pastry filling ever again. I thought it was horrible and I’d rather just have nothing instead.