This is a recipe that my Grandma made every year for the family at Christmastime. She started making them in the 70's. Before that, my great grandma made them. We looked forward to getting these more than gifts. Since my grandma passed away a few years ago, I have taken over the family tradition.
Total Time: 30 min for the first part and an hour for the second
Yield: 10
Ingredients:
- Sweet Dough
- 2 packages of dry yeast
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 4.5 to 4.75 cups of flour
- 1/2 cup margarine or crisco
- Topping
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
Steps:
- Scald milk. You can put in microwave for about 3 minutes. Let cool until temp. is between 120-130 degrees F.
- Add dried yeast and set aside, you can add 1 tsp. sugar to milk and dried yeast to make sure it is activated.
- Melt butter or Crisco, set aside.
- In mixer bowl, put about 1/4 of the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the milk/yeast mixture in the bowl and beat at medium speed for about 2 min or until well blended.
- Add the melted butter or Crisco and 1/2 of the flour and beat at medium speed, then add the eggs and beat at high speed for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. Add the rest of the flour and work in by hand until the dough can be handled.
- Put dough in a greased bowl with waxed paper covering and a damp cloth, put where the temp is near 80 to 85 degrees F. I put it on top of my oven with my oven on.
- Let rise until it doubles in bulk, usually 2 hours. Punch down, first in center and fold in the edges into the center. Let rise again until double in bulk about 45 minutes.
- Put dough onto slightly floured wax paper or pastry cloth, let stand about 10 minutes to tighten up.
- Knead dough until smooth and elastic, you can add a little more flour and knead it in.
- We have used pie pans or pot pie tins, it is up to you what you use. In the bottom of each pan, put brown sugar, pecans, and raisins.
- Now cut the dough into small pieces the size of walnuts, form into balls. Roll each ball into the melted butter then in the sugar mixture.
- Place the balls until it fills up the space. With pot pie tins, it is 4.
- Put 1.5 to 2 Tbsp. melted butter over the top. Set aside to rise about 30 minutes.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes.
This can be baked in several different size pans, including cupcake pans. Just reduce baking time.
