Pecan Poppyseed Roll

I have one Martha Stewart cookbook and I swear, every time I make something from it I find myself holding my breath and crossing my fingers because I'm never sure if the recipe is going to actually work out. So far, of the dozen or so recipes I've tried from The Martha Stewart Cookbook only two have turned out successfully and without needing some sort of major adjustment. The book is so inconsistent its annoying, and I've found the same to be true with recipes from her website and magazine too. I have often wondered if these recipes are tested for accuracy before being published because it doesn't appear so to me, I can follow the recipe to the letter and yet somehow it just doesn't work.

I'm not Martha bashing here, I'm not going to jump on that bandwagon, I liked watching her television show, and I like her magazine, but as a consumer of her products (magazines, cookbooks) I feel like I have a right to tell it like it is, especially when my time and my money are being wasted. What I find interesting is the irony of it, Martha Stewart; a woman who built her reputation and entire empire with rigid determination, anal retentive attention to detail, and who prided herself on making sure everything was done with the upmost perfection and yet, her cookbook is filled with recipes that lack any clear direction and have some major discrepancies. It boggles my mind. (however, it doesn't keep me up at night so don't worry my bunnies.)

Now, having said all that, I will say this, although the bread practically took over my entire kitchen because of the enormous size of it, it was really quite delicious!

The recipe claimed a yield of 1 large loaf. What I actually ended up with was enough dough and filling for TWO large loaves and possibly enough filling for me to have snuck off to a dark corner somewhere and eaten the filling with my fingers until I passed out have used it for something else. I don't want to mislead anyone with my complaints though, my issue with this particular recipe is because of the misleading quantities and not with the taste. I modified the recipe to fit better with the ingredients I had on hand. I can't take issue with Martha or her cookbook and be fair about it if the recipe had failed because of taste, that would have happened because of my modifications and not because something was amiss with the recipe. It was cold, I was in my pj's, it was New Year's day and I didn't want to go out. I had poppy seeds on hand, just not 1 and 1/2 pounds of them, so I compensated with pecans. I had raisins, not currents on hand, and then not enough raisins, so I made up the difference with dried cranberries. What I did like about this recipe was that it used ALL of the egg whites and yolks evenly, so I didn't end up with a stray yolk or a couple of whites that I had to figure out what to do with, that kind of thing will always earn points with me, what can I say, I groove on symmetry.

For the dough I dissolved 2 packages of active dry yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water letting it rest until it began to get foamy, about 7 minutes. In a large bowl, and with an electric mixer I combined the yeast mixture with 1 stick of melted, unsalted butter, 1/2 cup of sour cream, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 2 large eggs plus 2 egg yolks until everything was blended well. In another bowl I sifted together 41/2 cups all-purpose flour, 3/4 cups sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt, then added the ingredients to the yeast mixture and stirred/mixed with a rubber spatula/wooden spoon combo until everything was well blended. I turned the dough out onto a floured surface and kneaded until it was smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. I will say this for the dough; it was a pleasure to work with. It had a great feel to it and was very easy to manipulate and I wondered if it was the addition of the sour cream that made it so. In the past I’ve worked with some dough’s that were so stiff they practically had to be beat up, so this was a pleasant change. I would make the dough part of this recipe again in a minute and use it to make little bread knots for snacking just because it was so easy to work with and was so tasty. Anyway, after I kneaded the bread I placed it into a buttered bowl and covered it with saran wrap, then set it aside to rise in a warm place until it doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

For the filling, I first started by soaking a combination of raisins and dried cranberries equaling 1 cup with 1/4 cup cognac and set it aside until needed. I then took a large heavy skillet and melted 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter into it and added 11/2 pounds of the poppy seed/pecan mixture which I had previously ground in my handy dandy Krups coffee grinder. Note: to get the 11/2 pounds of filling, I used a 4 oz package of poppy seeds and a 12 ounce container of pecans, then relying on no math skills whatsoever I concluded that this proportion was equal to 11/2 pounds. Don't try this at home kids; it defies all common sense and logic. I was careful not to let the mixture burn while I was sautéing it and removed it from the heat when everything just started to become fragrant. I transferred to a large bowl and added 1/2 cup honey, the juice of 1 lemon and the raisin/cranberry/cognac mixture, then set aside.

To make the rest of the filling I had to start out by making what I called marshamllow fluff because that’s what this stuff reminded me of. I put 4 large egg whites into a bowl and with an electric mixer I beat them until frothy, then added 1 cup sugar 1 tablespoon at a time and continued to beat until the mixture was stiff and glossy. I folded the egg whites into the poppy seed/pecan mixture and ran off to the basement to secretly lick the bowl clean no, no no, I set it aside.

The instructions at this point called for rolling the dough on a floured board but I didn't have one, but since we were at our house and since I have a lot more room to work with there, I floured the countertop and continued. I rolled the dough into a rectangle that was approx. 26 x 17 inches.

I then spread the filling as evenly as I could onto the dough- taking care to leave a 1-inch margin on the two short sides and one long side. There was a lot of filling, the picture doesn't do any justice to just how much filling there was and I was skeptical and a little bit afraid by that. I mean, was this was going to be a failure? I shrugged off the thoughts and continued. I wet the margins of the dough with a pastry brush that I had dipped in water and began to try and roll this unwieldy looking mass into a log.

Things started to go downhill quickly at this point. The dough was WAY too soft and I also think the filling was too warm, both could have benefited from a little chilling, but this was something I couldn't have known until I started and there was no mention that this might happen in the book. It was very difficult to get the dough and filling to do anything but flop over and ooze.

I gave up trying to roll the thing into a log and basically tried my best to just enclose the dough around the mixture without too much of the filling seeping out or too much damage and tearing to the dough. I'll tell you, it was not easy. To seal it, I did a combination of pinching and tucking and a lot of wiping away of filling and to be honest, I never quite managed to get the thing to seal properly.

The book instructs to form this "log" into a crescent shape and to that I have to laugh, I mean really laugh, like a sidesplitting belly aching one. This was so hard to handle, what with the flopping and the oozing, the tearing and the leaking that at this stage I just threw my arms up and pushed/pulled/dragged and slung the mass onto the parchment lined baking sheet and gave up. I had originally planned on bringing this to our friends house as a super secret we love you treat, but what I thought was going to be this pretty little dainty goody was becoming a horrible out of control thing, and this thing was a mess! I had a massive mess. Tom said it looked more like a stocking than a rolled log and I responded to that by banning him from the kitchen. Anyway, I continued on and covered the thing with saran wrap and then left it to rise in a warm spot in our kitchen for about an hour. I went off to preheat the oven to 350 degrees and mix the egg wash which consisted of 2 large egg yolks and 1 tablespoon of water.

Just before baking I brushed on the egg wash and then took a serrated knife and made deep slashes onto the top of the dough. They were supposed to be decorative slashes, but come on, look what I had to work with here, taint nothing that was going to make that mass look pretty. I put the baking tray into the oven and left the dough to bake for 45-60 minutes. Nothing prepared me for the shock I had when I pulled this thing out of the oven, it had grown by leaps and bounds and was HUGE! Sadly though, the picture doesn't do that any justice, you'll have to just trust me on this one, it was huge.

We sliced into it while it was still warm and I have to tell you it was really good. It was slightly sweet and had a terrific aroma, a combination of yeast and nuts. I think I would have liked the poppy seeds to be a little less ground up but the nice surprise (for me) was the pecans. They gave a real nice nutty flavor to the bread and kind of reminded me of one of those terrible junky-but oh so yummy-coffee cake Danish’s from those street cart breakfast vendors. I was surprised by the filling, which had turned from a fluffy cloud to a crumbly but edible mass. Tom wasn’t too keen on the filling and I think it was because of the dried cranberries, they did have a more prominent flavor than I had wanted them too and I had the thought that if I ever made this bread again, I would leave out the dried cranberries. The bread itself was very good, even though it was way larger than we could handle between the two of us. I’d have a go at the recipe again just for the bread alone, I say to hell with that oozey filling.

Written by Deb on January 15, 2005 12:44 AM