Prologue: in my family of 8 siblings, I am the "go-to" person for figuring out lost recipes. Here's the latest:
My BIL's favorite childhood nut roll came from a German bakery in our town. However, before you leap on a German recipe hunt, remember, I come from a tiny steel-mill ETHNIC town where the Serbs and the Croatians and the Slovenians and the Ukrainians and Germans and the Polish and the Russian Orthodox and the Greek Catholics and the Roman Catholics and the Presbyterians and the Lutherans and the Hungarians and the Italians and the Irish all went to the same bakery. So...there is NO precident that the recipe will be german. The bakery carried whatever products sold.
That said, I'm looking for a ROUND nutroll (not oval-shaped as almost all nutrolls end up) with proportionally MORE NUTS than dough, but not thin layers. With a white icing on top.
Now here's the kicker. While we're sitting around discussing this and I'm grilling my sister and BIL for visual data points, because the bakery is long gone, my mother pops into the conversation and says: "Nina (old family friend, also dead and long gone) used to work there and she told us that Herman's used 75% soy beans and only 25% walnuts in their nut rolls."
Stunned silence around the room! This, in our tiny town filled with ethnic bakers, is almost heresy. To NOT USE ALL WALNUTS? What will we see next: perogies made with wonton wrappers?
Anyway, if I'm going to try and end up with a nut roll that "tastes" like what my BIL remembers, I think I need to test the 75% soy nut option. Only I've never used them. I don't even know where to buy them. I've seen them roasted in health-food stores as "snacks' but never as a baking product.
Also, the icing is throwing me.
My BIL's favorite childhood nut roll came from a German bakery in our town. However, before you leap on a German recipe hunt, remember, I come from a tiny steel-mill ETHNIC town where the Serbs and the Croatians and the Slovenians and the Ukrainians and Germans and the Polish and the Russian Orthodox and the Greek Catholics and the Roman Catholics and the Presbyterians and the Lutherans and the Hungarians and the Italians and the Irish all went to the same bakery. So...there is NO precident that the recipe will be german. The bakery carried whatever products sold.
That said, I'm looking for a ROUND nutroll (not oval-shaped as almost all nutrolls end up) with proportionally MORE NUTS than dough, but not thin layers. With a white icing on top.
Now here's the kicker. While we're sitting around discussing this and I'm grilling my sister and BIL for visual data points, because the bakery is long gone, my mother pops into the conversation and says: "Nina (old family friend, also dead and long gone) used to work there and she told us that Herman's used 75% soy beans and only 25% walnuts in their nut rolls."
Stunned silence around the room! This, in our tiny town filled with ethnic bakers, is almost heresy. To NOT USE ALL WALNUTS? What will we see next: perogies made with wonton wrappers?
Anyway, if I'm going to try and end up with a nut roll that "tastes" like what my BIL remembers, I think I need to test the 75% soy nut option. Only I've never used them. I don't even know where to buy them. I've seen them roasted in health-food stores as "snacks' but never as a baking product.
Also, the icing is throwing me.