Martin's Mini-Rolls
Traditional treat made on St Martin's Day
These mini-rolls were traditionally made on St Martin’s Day as part of that day’s feasting and celebrations and they are truly delicious! Most often they would be made with nut filling or sometimes even with poppy seed filling. Both are delicious, however as much as I am a poppy seed person, on this day I tend to stick with the nut filling as it feels more right :)
There are many different variations of this recipe, I chose the one I found among my grandma’s recipes :)
INGREDIENTS:
For the dough:
500g fine white (spelt) flour
40g of fresh yeast or 14g of dried yeast
3 tbsp of sugar
250 ml milk of choice
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp of salt
100g butter, softened
1 egg for brushing
Icing sugar for dusting
baking sheet
For the nut filling:
200 ml of milk of choice
250g ground walnuts (or other nuts of choice but walnuts are most traditional)
50g crushed sponge buscuits “piškoty” (you can get them online in the UK or in any Czech, Slovak or Polish food shops, otherwise use any plain white buiscits of choice)
45g brown caster sugar
30g honey
1-2 tbsp Czech rum (dark rum) - you can get it even on Amazon! :)
First, made the filling. Crush the buiscuits into as tiny pieces as possble and fine-grind the nuts. Bring the milk just below the boiling point and add the ground walnuts. Leave to warm up for about 5 minutes. and add the remaining ingredients, mix carefuly for about one minute and then leave to cool.
If the filling is too runny, add more buiscuits or nuts, if it’s too thick add more milk or rum! Rum really brings out the flavor :)
To make the dough, crumble the yeast into lukewarm milk (or if using dried, follow the instructions on the packet). Add one tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour and cover to leave prove and become bubbly. This takes about 15 minutes.
Sift the flour into a bowl, then add the salt, sugar, egg yolks and the leaven. Mix well, then cut the butter into small pieces and add to the mix. Knead until you have a smooth dough that isn’t sticky and is soft and shiny. Dust with a bit of flour and cover, allowing it to rise in a warm place - the dough should double in its size.
Once the dough is ready, prehat the over to 180°C, and dust the table top with flour and turn out the dough. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a rectangular and cut it in half. Set one half aside. Devide the first half into two long rectangulars and cur out triangulars from each. Fill each triangl with the filling and roll into a roll shape, then bend slightly into a shoehorse shape. Beat the egg and brush each roll lightly. Repeat the steps with the other half of the dough that you set aside.
Transfer to the baking tray lined with the baking sheet and bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until golden.
Leave to cool and dust with a bit of icing sugar to remember that St Martin’s arrives on a white horse! Meaning the first snow is to be expected :) And if there’s no snow, at least you’ll have some on your plate :)
Some useful links if you are in the UK for the Czech ingredients:
https://www.halusky.co.uk/
https://www.slovakia-foods.co.uk/
https://tatry.co.uk/