When I was growing up, a swirly nutty bread would show up on the table at family gatherings. Â Unfortunately, I generally ignored the bread in favor of colorful Christmas cookies and frosting-slathered brownies.
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 It wasn't until the final year or so of my grandmother making this labor-intensive bread, and I was an adult, that I gave it a second look (or taste).  And, wow, I immediately loved Grandma's Homemade Nut Bread and regretted not gorging on it every year as a child. Â
About the time I really grew to love Grandma's Nut Bread, the annual making of the rolls became too difficult for her.  Grandma lived until age 91 and probably made it until she was in her mid-80s. Grandma passed away in 2016 the day after Christmas.. My mother made the bread once years ago and it hasn't reappeared since, it is a very labor-intensive bread. Our friend, Jay, did make a batch of it a couple of Christmases ago for us and that was a real treat.
A little background, my hometown of Middletown was once a patchwork of ethnic enclaves: Catholic Irish around the mid-town area, Italians on the south side, Eastern Europeans staked out some turf in between, and so on. The recent immigrants brought their own culinary traditions with them. In many cases the recipes have long outlasted the ethnic enclaves as the lines began to blur in Middletown and the the city morphed into one relatively homogeneous melting pot. This nut bread recipe came from an Italian woman who was a friend of my grandma, who is also of Italian descent. The recipe came into our family in 1966 and my great-grandmother and grandmother made it every Christmas for almost 40 years
Food traditions bind us like few others to past generations. Â Mom swears she could hear her grandmother talking to her as she kneaded the dough.
🔩 The Nuts & Bolts of Nut Bread
Okay, a few thoughts on this recipe:
- You can substitute pecans for walnuts if you like, but I wouldn't. I mean, my Grandma wouldn't, so why would I? But you can.
- Works best on cookie sheets. I've not tried in a loaf pan, but you can try it that way if you want.
- Some people compare this to a banana nut bread recipe or banana bread, but there are no bananas in this recipe! A fun experiment would be to add a couple cups of mashed bananas and see what happens. If I were adding bananas I'd add a splash of orange juice too.
My grandmother never used an electric mixer with this recipe, but you could try it with the dough and the batter, that might speed up the process a bit.
Give Grandma's Homemade Nut Bread is one of those delicious recipes that you can give a try if you are adventuresome and feel free to cut it in half unless you want 11-15 loaves of nut bread! Â Meanwhile, are there any culinary traditions in your family that it just wouldn't be Christmas unless they were on your menu?
By the way, if you have extra, just pop the loaves in a freezer bag and they'll store well for months. Freezing won't freeze away the calories, though, Although there is some nice protein and fiber in this bread. Grandma's nut bread is great warm, too, you can slice off some and stick in the toaster oven. Spread with cream cheese and enjoy!
🥜Grandma's Nut Bread
- 12 cups all purpose flour
- 1 quart milk
- 6 eggs (2 whole eggs and four yolks)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 /2 pound butter
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 3 packets of fast-rising powdered yeast; or 3 cakes of yeast
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Nut Bread Filling
- 6 pounds of English walnuts
- 1 pound graham crackers
- vegetable oil or melted shortening
- About 3 cups milk
- 3 1 /2 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 egg whites
Instructions for the bread:
- Place flour in a large mixing bowl, add salt.
- Dissolve sugar in 1 cup warm milk, mix into flour and mix well.
- Melt butter into a little milk and mix with flour mixture and blend thoroughly.
- Add powdered yeast to mixture (OR dissolve cake yeast in a little warm milk and add to mixture -DO NOT DO BOTH!).
- Add yeast and slightly beaten eggs and remaining milk and vanilla.
- Knead well for about 15 minutes!
- Sprinkle flour around dough and place in a pan to raise until double in bulk.
- Divide into eight balls.
Instructions for the filling:
- Grind nuts and graham crackers, until about the consistency of sand.
- Add about 2 cups of warm milk, add sugar, beat egg-whites until stiff
- Add to nut mixture and stir well. Add vanilla extract.
- Add remaining milk and mix well.
- Roll out dough and brush oil lightly on rolled dough.
- Spread with nut mixture.
- Roll like a jelly roll.
- Bake on cookie sheets in a moderate oven (300-350 depending on the oven) until the outside of the loaves are golden brown.
🥜Other Amish Nut Recipes
Amish cooks find nuts to be a very versatile, fla vorful addition to recipes and they show up a lot during the holidays!
Delicious cake!
Delicious browneis!
Fudgy, and nutty, what could be better?
Amazing!
Grandma's Nut Bread
Ingredients
- 12 cups flour
- 1 quart milk
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ½ pound butter
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 3 packets fast rising yeast
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Nut Bread Filling
- 6 pounds English walnuts
- 1 pound graham crackers
- vegetable oil or melted shortening
- 3 cups milk
- 3 ½ cups  sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 egg whites
Instructions
Instructions for the bread
- Place flour in a large mixing bowl, add salt.
- Dissolve sugar in 1 cup warm milk, mix into flour and mix well.
- Â Melt butter into a little milk and mix with flour mixture and blend thoroughly.
- Add powdered yeast to mixture (OR dissolve cake yeast in a little warm milk and add to mixture -DO NOT DO BOTH!).
- Add yeast and slightly beaten eggs and remaining milk and vanilla. Â
- Knead well for about 15 minutes!
- Â Sprinkle flour around dough and place in a pan to raise until double in bulk. Divide into eight balls
For the filling
- Grind nuts and graham crackers, until about the consistency of sand.
- Â Add about 2 cups of warm milk, add sugar, beat egg-whites until stiff
- Â Add to nut mixture and stir well.
- Add vanilla extract. Â Add remaining milk and mix well.
- Roll out dough and brush oil lightly on rolled dough.
- Spread with nut mixture. Â Roll like a jelly roll.
- Â Bake on cookie sheets in a moderate oven (300-350 depending on the oven) until the outside of the loaves are golden brown.
- Slice into ½ inch rounds when the loaves are cool
Kay
This nut bread sounds good! A multi-generational tradition in my family is Oyster Salad. Sounds gross and the young ones don't like it, but I make it every year to honor my great-grandmother. It's an acquired taste. I have never seen this recipe anywhere else, though I've tried to trace it's background. Maybe it came from England?
kentuckylady717
This looks delicious...they make one similar to this in Mich. I always bought a nut roll every Christmas and sometimes I'd buy a poppy seed one too...kinda expensive...I think they were $8.00 but well worth it....I think maybe they are called Hungarian Nut Roll & Hungarian Poppy Seed Roll.....you are lucky to have someone to bake them for you Kevin.....maybe your mom can teach Rachel how to make them and carry on the tradition 🙂 eh Rachel 🙂 You could include one or two of these in a contest Kevin....I bet you'd get some takers.....I'd sure love to have one.....
surgery4
This type of nut bread is usually known as "Potica" or "Povitica." My Slovenian-born grandmother made it.
surgery4
Also, the Strawberry Hill Povitica Company (bakery) in Kansas City (Merriam, KS) makes several versions and sends out all over the world. They are the closest to my grandmother's in taste. They have a website and 800 number. Strawberry Hill is an area settled by several ethnic groups.
Kevin
Thank you for telling me about this, I'll have to check out that bakery!!
Nana
It looks delicious but I just looked at walnuts while at the grocery this morning and they were $8.99 for 16 ounces so I can't even imagine using 6 pounds in this recipe. I did not buy them today but may cave in for Christmas cookies.
Kevin
Holy cow, Nana, those are expensive, what grocery store was that?
Wanda Chennault
What egg whites?
Kevin Williams
Sorry, Wanda, I had omitted them accidentally, but I added them back in, thanks for letting me know. Should be four egg whites in the filling
Bernadette Laganella
I stubbed upon your site. I grew up in Levittown, PA in the 1950's and used to help a neighbor make these loaves. I have periodically tried to find a recipe but have never been successful until today. Can't wait to give it a try.
Kevin Williams
Great, glad to hear, let me know how it turns out!