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Beloved bread is topped
with honey, nuts

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For two years, I've held onto Florence Yamada's letter requesting the recipe for Honey Twist Bread.

"I've been searching many years now for a Honey Twist recipe that my mother baked for us kids in the 1950s," she wrote. "It was a yeast bread with a honey and nut crust-like topping that was out of this world. I'm surprised that none of the cookbooks I've looked at (and I've gone through lots) have it printed."

She was right; it didn't appear in the many baking books I consulted, but finally this recipe turned up. It's been adapted to make a topping as Yamada described.

I can't be sure this is the same as her mom's, but it is really good, especially hot out of the oven.

Honey Twist

"Judy Gorman's Breads of New England" (Yankee Publishing, 1988)

1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package dry yeast, dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
2 large eggs, beaten
4 to 4-1/2 cups bread flour
>> Filling/Topping:
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup chopped nuts
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat milk, butter, sugar and salt in microwave or on stovetop to melt butter and dissolve sugar. Pour into large mixing bowl and let sit until just warm to touch.

Stir in dissolved yeast and eggs. Add 2 cups of flour and beat until smooth. Gradually add more flour until dough becomes difficult to stir.

Turn onto a floured surface and knead, gradually adding enough of the remaining flour until dough is soft and no longer sticky. Form into a ball and place in a greased bowl covered with a clean towel. Let rise until double in bulk, about 45 minutes.

Grease two 9-inch round pans.

To make filling/topping: Heat butter and honey to melt butter. In another bowl, combine brown sugar, nuts and cinnamon.

Punch dough down. Divide in 2 pieces. Working on a lightly floured surface, roll 1 piece into a 6-by-18-inch rectangle. Spread with butter/honey mixture. Sprinkle generously with sugar/nut mixture. Beginning from a long side, roll up dough tightly to form a rope. Lift and twist slightly, then form into a loose coil in prepared pan. Repeat with second piece of dough. Cover and let rise until doubled.

Or, for a simpler approach, make 2 standard loaves by rolling dough into 2 9-by-14-inch rectangles, spreading with filling and rolling up lengthwise. Forget about the rope, twist and coil. Place in 2 loaf pans; cover and let rise.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Brush tops of loaves with more of butter/honey mixture, reserving about 2 tablespoons. Sprinkle with remaining sugar/nut mixture. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush with last of the butter/honey mixture. Cool in pan on rack.

Note: The amount of sugar, nuts and cinnamon in the filling may be cut in half if you prefer less sweetness.

Nutritional information unavailable.

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Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.