Nanny's Christmas Tea Ring

My grandmother used to make tons of this at Christmas time and would deliver them to neighbors and friends. It was something we always looked forward to helping her with. I have made this other times of year, and it's still great. Best consumed warm with butter at breakfast. Prep time includes dough rise time.

• Ready In: 3 hrs 30 mins
• Serves: 10
• Yields: 18 pieces or so

Ingredients

• 1 (1/4ounce) package dry yeast
• 1⁄2 cup warm water
• 1⁄2 cup  luke warm milk
• 1⁄3 cup sugar
• 1⁄3 cup shortening
• 1  teaspoon salt
• 1  egg
• 3 1⁄2-4  cups all-purpose flour
• 2  tablespoons butter or 2  tablespoons margarine, softened
• 1⁄2 cup  packed brown sugar
• 2  teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1⁄2 cup raisins
• 1  cup powdered sugar
• 1  tablespoon milk
• 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla
•  maraschino cherry, walnuts, pecans

Directions

1. Dissolve years in water in large bowl. Wait 5 minutes. Stir in milk, sugar, shortening, salt, egg and 2 cups of the flour and beat until smooth.
2. Mix in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle and not sticky.
3. Turn dough onlo lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes Place dough in greased bowl, flip dough over so greased side is up.
4. Cover dough, and let rise in warm place until doubled, about 1.5 hours. Dough is ready if indentation stays when touched. Punch dough down.
5. Roll dough into 15x9 rectangle on lightly foured surface.
6. Spread butter/margarine over the rectangle covering the whole surface. Sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins.
7. Starting on the long edge, roll dough tightly up. Pinch edge of dough into roll to seal well. Firmly grasp the dough in various spots as needed to even it out (it may be thicker in some spots.).
8. Withe sealed edge down, shape into ring on lightly greased cookie sheet, and pinch ends together.
9. With kitchen shears or sharp knife make cuts 2/3 of the way through the ring at 1 inch intervals. Turn each cut section onto it's side so pieces kind of overlap.
10. Let rise again until double, about 40 minutes.
11. Heat oven to 375 and bake until golden brown about 25-30 minutes I fit starts to brown too quickly, cover loosely with foil. When it's done, let cool on wire rack and transfer to large plate or platter.
12. While it's cooling mix up the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla until smooth and desired consistency. Spread over the cooled tea ring. Decorate with Cherries, walnuts, pecans so that each piece of the tea ring has something on it. The cherries are my favorite.