INGREDIENTS FOR THE FILLING
1 kg of sultana raisins
1 glass of grappa
½ glass of Marsala wine
½ glass of rum
1 kg of shelled walnuts
200 g of amaretti cookies
100 g of butter
100 g of pine nuts
300 g of sugar
2 packets of vanilla sugar
INGREDIENTS FOR THE DOUGH
75 g of fresh yeast
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
300 g of sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
100 g of butter
100 g of sunflower or corn oil
2 tablespoons of rum
2 tablespoons of grappa
1 kg of all-purpose wheat flour
PREPARATION TIME
2 hours, plus baking time
PROCEDURE FOR THE FILLING
A couple of days before preparing the gubana, soak the raisins in the grappa, rum, and Marsala. Start by grinding the walnuts and amaretti. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and lightly toast the pine nuts. In a bowl, thoroughly mix all the ingredients: the ground walnuts with the amaretti, sugar, soaked raisins, vanilla sugar, and the pine nuts with their warm butter. Cover the filling with plastic wrap and set it aside.
PROCEDURE FOR THE DOUGH
First, dissolve the fresh yeast in a little warm water and set it aside. In a large bowl, beat the whole eggs and egg yolks with the sugar, vanilla sugar, and lemon zest. Then add the melted butter, oil, dissolved yeast, and the liqueurs. Finally, gradually add the flour until you obtain a soft dough. Cover with a kitchen towel and let the dough rise in a warm place until it has doubled in volume. Once ready, divide the dough into loaves of 500 grams each and roll them out into an oval shape using a rolling pin. Fill each oval with 500 grams of filling, carefully covering all the dough. Roll it up and shape it into a snail (spiral). Transfer it to a baking mold with a diameter of 19-20 centimeters and let it rest again until it has doubled in volume.
Bake the gubana in a preheated oven at 160°C for about 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 150°C and continue baking for another 30-40 minutes. If the surface of the dessert tends to brown too much during baking, you can cover it with a sheet of parchment paper. Once baked, let it cool in the mold and store it well-sealed in a food bag.
