Story at the bottom.
Ingredients:
- 2 T yeast
- 6.5 C warm water (less than original recipe) Do not use tap water, get purified or bottled water. Tap water kills yeast.
- 1/4 C sugar
- 1 T salt
- 3 T lard
- 9-10 C flour
- Butter or Margarine
- Spray oil
Method:
Dissolve yeast in all the water. Stir in sugar, salt, lard and 5 cups of the flour. I throw it in my large mixer. Add in enough flour while it is mixing to make a smooth dough. Run for 5-10 minutes.
Remove dough in the bowl from the mixer and spray down dough. Turn the dough in the bowl, and spray the bottom of the dough as well. Cover with a damp towel or saran wrap and put the whole contraption in a cold oven with the light on.
About an hour later… Spray 2 loaf pans with oil, pull dough from the bowl and punch down. Cut in half and roll out on floured or oiled board. Roll up into loaves and put in bread pans with the seam side down. Slash the tops of the loaves with your sharpest knife and cover with your towel again.
Another hour later, remove loaves from the oven gently. Pre-heat oven to 425* for the baking process. Once the oven is piping hot, remove the towel, and put the loaves in the oven again. 35 very long minutes later remove loaves from the oven, brush down with butter.
Now for the hardest part. Let that stuff sit. Give it minimum 20 minutes. Preferably another hour. It’s going to be ruthlessly hard. But you will be rewarded.
Variations:
You can add in cinnamon and brown sugar when you are rolling the dough into loaves. You can also add walnuts at the same time as a crumbly mixture.
Another addition you can try… Garlic in the same manner as above with parmesan cheese. Just be careful, you don’t want to overwhelm the flavor of the bread.
Other ideas and variations can be a marmalade mix spread over the rolled out dough. You can also mix herbs with the dry ingredients. Make this your own.
Original source: Betty Crocker’s 1968? Note, this has been altered from the original.
Now the story:
Dad claimed to be allergic to the preservatives in store bought bread. We noticed he felt better when I made homemade bread one day. Actually, the old fart conned me into doing it.
He liked it so much he bought me a kitchen aide mixer so I would bake for him often. Take care my friends. Hugs huge ones. -L
AnonymousKnitter 