My Grandmothers Date Nut Roll Recipes

GRANDMA'S DATE-NUT BREAD

Steps:

• Put raisins in a bowl. Pour boiling water over raisins; soak until raisins have flavored the water, about 20 minutes. Drain raisins, reserving the water. Discard raisins.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a loaf pan with butter.
• Bring reserved water to a boil in a small saucepan. Measure 3/4 cup boiling water into a bowl. Stir baking soda into water.
• Put dates and prunes in a large bowl. Pour baking soda-water over dates and prunes; add unsalted butter and stir until melted. Stir sugar and vanilla extract into the fruit mixture; let cool to room temperature.
• Stir egg into the fruit mixture to evenly coat. Mix flour and salt together in a small bowl; add to fruit mixture and stir. Fold walnuts into the mixture and pour into the prepared loaf pan.
• Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 50 to 65 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

GREAT-GRANDMA CATHY'S DATE LOAF CANDY

Steps:

• Stir sugar, milk, and butter together in a saucepan; bring to a boil without stirring once the boiling begins. Heat until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms a rigid ball or until the mixture reaches 250 degrees F (120 degrees C), about 20 minutes. Immediately remove saucepan from heat and stir dates, pecans, and vanilla into the milk mixture.
• Thoroughly wet a piece of cheesecloth and lay out onto a flat work surface. Pour the candy mixture into the middle of the cloth and roll the cloth around it to shape into a log.
• Refrigerate until hard, 8 hours to overnight. Remove log from cloth and slice.

GRANDMA RENEE'S DATE NUT LOAF

Steps:

• Boil sugar, milk and butter until it forms a soft ball in cool water (grandma's exact words) -- around 240 degrees.
• Fold in chopped dates and pecans, continue to cook until it pulls away from the pan (around 255 degrees).
• Pour onto wet cloth in log form - dust with powdered sugar and roll.
• Cool and cut into 20 pieces.

GRANDMA SUSAN'S NUT ROLL

Steps:

• DISSOLVE the yeast in ½ cup of the scalded milk (still hot) and 1 Tablespoon of sugar.
• COMBINE the rest of the dough ingredients and knead BY HAND until the dough is soft and elastic.
• REFRIGERATE the dough for a minimum of 10 hours. Don't keep the dough in the refrigerator for more than two days.
• DIVIDE the dough into eight balls and let rise in a warm place for 2½ - 3 hours.
• PREPARE the filing ingredients by mixing them all together in a medium-size bowl and beat the eggs (in a separate bowl) while you are waiting for the dough to rise.
• ROLL the dough out onto a well-floured surface into a rectangle, no more than ¼" thick. Brush the dough with some melted butter. Be liberal with this application - remember you have 1 cup of melted butter for eight rolls. The butter helps the filling stick and keeps the rolls moist in the middle.
• SPREAD the filling out on top of the butter. Sprinkle some cinnamon on top of the filing. Put as much on as you like, this is just fo taste, and not absolutely necessary to the recipe. Then, drizzle the honey over top of all of this. Again, be liberal in applying this.
• ROLL UP the dough loosely. The length of the roll doesn't matter, it just needs to fit onto your cookie sheet. Make three or four small slits diagonally across the top of the roll.
• BRUSH with beaten eggs.
• BAKE at 350º for 24-30 minutes. Your cook time will depend on how thick you rolled out your dough and how much filling you piled up inside. When done, your dough will be a beautiful golden brown color on the outside, and the slits which you cut in the top will have opened up and some filling will probablystart to bubble out. Try baking one roll first. When you think it's finished, cut it in half. You will be abl to see whether the dough in the middle is cooked. If not - just adjust your baking time accordingly.
• SERVE the roll, by cutting slices off about 1" thick. With the filling that we used here, butter works GREAT as a spread.
• Please let me know if you have any questions! Good luck and enjoy!

MY GRANDMOTHER'S DATE NUT ROLL

Steps:

• Chop dates. (Do not buy or use dates that are already chopped.)
• Combine sugar, milk, and dates in a large saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture reaches soft ball 234 degrees.
• Remove from heat. Stir in butter and nuts. Stir until candy starts to thicken. Divide candy in half, by shaping it into logs on two damp tea towels. roll and shape into 10"X2" logs. Let cool. Slice to serve.