Presnitz Recipe

1. Make filling: Melt butter or margarine in a small skillet; add bread crumbs; stir until well blended and brown; remove from heat and reserve.
2. Cover raisins with boiling water in a small bowl; let stand 5 minutes; drain and reserve.
3. Grind walnuts and chocolate into a large bowl; add drained raisins, pignoli, candied fruits, grated apple, orange and lemon rinds, honey, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. Stir with a wooden spoon until blended.
4. Make dough: Combine flour, salt and sugar in a medium-size bowl; work in butter or margarine, egg yolk and lukewarm water with fingers to make a stiff dough. Turn out onto a wooden board. Bang 12 times onto board from a 2-foot height; cover dough with a heated large pot; let rest 5 minutes.
5. Stretch a clean small sheet or a softly laundered old tablecloth smoothly on kitchen table; sprinkle with flour. Roll dough on sheet into a 30x 12-inch rectangle, using more flour if needed to prevent sticking.
6. Sprinkle butter or margarine and bread crumb mixture over dough. Spread fruit and nut mixture as evenly as possible in a 3-inch-wide strip over one long edge of dough, 1 inch in from edge. Fold short edges of dough over filling to make a neat rectangle.
7. Lift sheet at long side and begin rolling up, using sheet to lift dough, until dough is completely rolled up.
8. Form roll into coil on a greased 15xl0xl-inch jelly roll pan. Brush with beaten egg white. Place a pan of hot water in the lower rack of oven. Place jelly roll pan on rack in top third of oven.
9. Bake in moderate oven (375°) 1 hour, or until cake is golden. Cool in pan on wire rack 15 minutes; loosen cake with spatula; lift onto wire rack to cool completely. Cake is even better if left to mellow several days.