Sicilian Nut Rolls Recipes

WALNUT NUT ROLLS (NUT ROLL)

Steps:

• Dough: Dissolve yeast in milk with sugar. Add butter, salt, and egg yolks.
• Stirring to mix. Add 2 cups flour and mix well, add remaining flour. Knead 5 minutes.
• Divide dough into 3-4 parts, cover and let rise while preparing filling.
• Filling: Heat all ingredients in a sauce pan until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and let cool.
• Roll out each portion of dough to an 1/8 inch thickness in a rectangle shape. Spread an equal amount of filling on each portion on dough. Roll up jelly roll fashion and let raise 15-20 minutes.
• Brush with egg whites before baking. (I accidentally forgot to do this one year and have decided we like it better without the egg wash.) Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes.
• Once cool, top with icing, if desired.
• Icing: Cream butter and egg yolk. Then add confectioner's sugar a cup at a time beating on medium speed. Add vanilla and milk 1 Tbls. at a time and beat on high until fluffy.

SICILIAN NUT ROLLS

Steps:

• 1 In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Cut in the shortening and butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 2 In a small bowl, whisk the eggs with two tablespoons of the milk. Add the mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring until the dough is evenly moistened. If needed, blend in a little more milk. 3 Gather the dough into a ball and place it on a sheet of plastic wrap. Flatten it into a disk and wrap well. Refrigerate 1 hour up to overnight. 4 Process the nuts and sugar in a food processor. Process until fine. Add the honey, zest, and cinnamon, and process until blended. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease 2 large baking sheets. 5 Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Roll out one piece between two sheets of plastic wrap to form a square slightly larger than 8 inches. Trim the edges and cut the dough into 2-inch squares. Place a heaping teaspoon of the filling along one side of each square. Roll up the dough to enclose the filling completely. Place seam-side down on the baking pan. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling, placing the cookies 1 inch apart. 6 Bake 18 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned. Transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool. Store in a tightly sealed container up to 2 weeks. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar before serving. From "1,000 Italian Recipes." Copyright 2004 by Michele Scicolone. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.