Ořechový Závin (Mock Strudel)

My grandmother is best known for her baking, and now that the city has cooled down a bit, we were up for the task!  Here's what you need to make her Ořechový Závin, or "Mock" Strudel.  This is always a big hit at parties.  NOTE: This is a 2-day recipe!

 Here's what you'll need:

For the dough:
1/2 pound butter or margarine, melted

1 tbsp. sugar

3/4 tsp. salt

1 c. sour cream (can be reduced fat, but not fat-free!)

2-1/4 c. flour, sifted before measuring

For the filling:

8 oz. orange marmalade

8 oz. apricot preserves

1 c. chopped walnuts

1/2 c. golden raisins

1/2 c. brown sugar (my grandmother likes brownulated but regular light brown sugar is just fine)

1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Also:

1 egg

1 packet of vanilla sugar (optional)

My grandmother made the dough before I got there, so I've replicated her recipe (successfully!) to illustrate everything.  Start by melting your butter or margarine and let it cool, then assemble all your ingredients.

 Toss everything into a big electric mixer until it forms a ball.

Wrap it in cling wrap and pop it into the fridge, overnight - or at least 9 hours, or a maximum of 2 days - before continuing to the next steps.  If you're like me, you forgot to let the margarine cool before adding it, but once you wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight, it will behave exactly the way it should!

On baking day, grease your baking pan with butter or baking spray, and then prepare your fillings.  Mix together your marmalade and apricot preserves and set aside.  Feel free to make more than you need, since it never hurts to have a little extra, plus it's delicious on toast.

Separately, mix your walnuts, raisins and sugar (and optional cinnamon).

Preheat the oven to 325°F.  Cut your dough into four equal parts. Tip: you can use a scale to make sure they are (roughly) equal.  Weigh the whole lump and divide that weight by four to see what each piece should weigh separately!  (set your scale to metric - it's easier to divide hundreds of grams than pounds and ounces)

On a lightly floured surface, press the dough into the general shape of a rectangle.

Then roll out your dough completely.  The length should be roughly equivalent to the width of your large baking sheet and you should aim for a width of 7-8 inches.  This will make sense soon, I promise.    Pull up the left side and tuck a little extra flour underneath, then do the same with the other side.  You don't want it to stick to your counter right after you've filled it up with goopy delicious things.

Mentally split the dough into three parts/columns.  Line the center column generously with your jam mixture.

Generously sprinkle the jam with your nut and raisin filling.

Gently fold over the short edges of your strudel by 1 cm.  

Then fold in the long sides (which ever turned out shorter should be folded first) and seal it as best you can.  

Gently move it to your baking pan and reseal it if necessary.

Repeat 4 times, till you have four strudels assembled on your baking tray.  See, I told you it would make sense!  And once you've done one, the rest are a piece of cake.

Crack your egg into a small bowl and whisk it up a bit.  With a pastry brush, brush the egg gently all over the top and sides of your strudels.  This will seal the seams and smooth away any rough edges.  You can sprinkle on some vanilla sugar if you'd like.  Bake at 325°F for 50-60 minutes, until golden all over.  Cut it into one inch slices while still warm.  Let it sit in a cool, dark place overnight, then store in an airtight container.  

Note: This is the only cake my grandmother doesn't freeze. However, she uses the same dough recipe to make her poppyseed cake and her potato strudel, both of which she freezes as soon as they have cooled (they keep for several weeks).  I'll have a go at those recipes soon!  In the meantime, I hope you try this recipe.  It's one of her absolute best!  Mmmmm...