Basic Bread Making: Grandma's Recipe

Making bread for the family is not an easy task by anyone's standards. Though nowadays with our bread machines and mixes ready to use, it is a lot easier than it used to be. If one decides to forego the mix and put their own ingredients together it gets a little more problematic. If the decision is made to make bread the old-fashioned way, doing all the work and using an oven, it can turn into an exercise in frustration.

As followers of my blog Secrets of a Lazy Trainer at Http://secretsofalazytrainer.blogspot.com know, I've been experimenting with developing my own sour dough starter. It has not gone well. Up until recently (not even a hundred years ago yet) bread making was the last cooking skill taught to young women. This is because it is the most difficult of all cooking skills to get right.

I've also dug up an old housekeeping book of my grandmother's. The first chapter was devoted to making bread. It is the most detailed chapter of the entire booklet. Which, when you read my article about fall cleaning, gives you an idea of just how complicated making bread can be.

Cookies, cakes and pies are the first things a mother taught her daughter to prepare, but the bread for the family was too important to allow a beginning cook to mess with it. Even today, with precise recipes, measurements and detailed directions, bread making is a task fraught with peril.

Having given up on my sourdough experiment I decided to make rolls from a recipe my grandmother used. I remember them with great fondness and they do seem simple enough to make; except she didn't use measurements as we understand them.

To begin the oven should be heated. Grandma had one of the stove's that stood on four legs. The oven and broiler were on the right side. There were four burners on the left and a shelf above them where she kept her container of fat she collected every morning after preparing bacon and eggs. It was metal and had a strainer to catch the dark crunchy bits which she kept in a jar in the refrigerator for flavoring greens. She had matching salt and pepper shakers as well.

I mention all of the above because what she didn't have was a thermometer to regulate her oven. She'd used this particular range so long (this style of stove was popular in the 1920's) that she just knew exactly how to adjust the flow of gas to properly bake whatever it was she was cooking.

She also had a cabinet, for want of a better term, that she stored her staples in. There was a built in container for flour. It held about fifty pounds which she bought in sacks. These sacks were made of a cotton print which she later used to make clothing or quilts. There was a sifter that she would place a bowl under. Then she opened it by sliding a piece of metal out and turning a crank that sifted the flour into the bowl. She didn't measure the flour because she knew just how much she needed in that bowl.

She also kept such things as cornmeal, sugar, salt, pepper, various spices, and a special set of jars she kept baking soda and cornstarch in. The cabinet had a pull out shelf that she used when cooking. It was enameled and just the right height and size for kneading dough.

The bowl was then set on the shelf of the stove to "air" while she proved her yeast and mixed the milk, lard, and sometimes eggs. The airing is more important than one might think. If the flour has too much moisture or too little it can really mess up a making of bread.

The milk was scalded first. This means milk is heated to one hundred sixty degrees or just before it forms a skin on top. She would remove a half-cup and set it aside to cool while she added the lard to the milk and stirred until it melted. Once the milk set aside had cooled she added a spoon of sugar (using one of her soup spoons) and then the yeast. At that time yeast was sold in small cakes that had to be kept refrigerated. This was set next to the bowl of flour, well away from the oven, so the yeast would grow. This usually took about half an hour to an hour. Bread making is all about about. Times are not exact. Yeast is a living organism and will not always behave in a predictable manner.

Once the yeast was well grown (it filled the teacup she'd used to prove it in) she would add it to the flour and mix. Once it was a crumbly mixture she would add the rest of the milk/lard solution.

She mixed the flour and liquids with a sturdy wooden spoon until she had a ball of dough. She then let it rest for about ten minutes, there is that about again, before turning it out on the enameled shelf I mentioned earlier. She floured it well and had a small container of sifted flour nearby while she kneaded the dough.

When she was making rolls she would knead only until she had a soft ball of dough. If she was making loaf bread she kneaded longer to obtain a firmer ball of dough. Because I do things more by precise measurements and times I find kneading for five minutes gives me the right consistency for rolls and ten minutes is best for a loaf of bread.

Here is Grandma's recipe for rolls and bread. The measurements are mine.

Grandma's Yeast Bread

1 cup milk

1 cup potato water (makes the bread keep better)

1 package of yeast

4 Tablespoons of sugar (for rolls, 2 Tbs. for bread)

4 Tablespoons of butter or shortening

6 cups of flour

Heat oven to 400º

Heat liquid to 160º then set aside to cool.

Mix sugar in liquid.

Mix yeast in ½ cup of liquid and set in warm (70 or 80 degrees) place until liquid foams and smells yeasty.

Melt butter or lard in the rest of the liquid.

When the yeast is ready mix with the rest of the liquid.

Place half of the flour in a large bowl. Pour in liquid and mix until all the liquid is absorbed by the flour. Add flour a half cup at a time until the dough forms into a ball.

Set aside and allow to rest for ten minutes.

Once dough is rested turn out on to a well floured surface. If you are making rolls knead for five minutes. The dough will keep its shape but feel springy to the touch.

If making loaf bread knead for ten minutes which will make a firmer dough.

Rub the ball of dough with lard or butter and set in bowl that will allow it to double in size. Set in place where the temperature is at least 70º but not more than 90º If your house is cooler than this you might set it on a heating pad turned on low.

When dough is double in size make a fist and push the middle down. Fold edges over and turn the ball smooth side up. This is known as "punching down" the dough.

A second rising will make for a better bread, but rolls need only rise this once.

Pinch off small amounts of dough (about the size of a golf ball) roll into a ball and place in well greased pan. Set back and let rise to double in size again.

Once dough has risen this time put in an over of about 400º and bake for 15 to 25 minutes or until the rolls are a nice golden brown on top.

If making bread form a loaf and place in a well oiled bread pan. Let rise and then bake at 400º for 50 to 60 minutes or until the top will give a solid sound when thumped.