Melt the butter in the microwave and add the
milk to make it lukewarm. Soak the yeast in ¼
cup lukewarm water with a teaspoon of sugar.
When the yeast is bubbly, add it to the flour
with all the other ingredients, except the one
egg white.
Stir it all together until moistened. Wait a few
minutes, and then work the dough until it is
very smooth and doesn't stick. It should come
off the sides of the bowl; it should look like a
smooth ball. Dust the top with flour OR coat
lightly with liquid shortening.
Cover with a clean dish towel and let it rise
until double in bulk. Dump it on a floured board
and work it into a smooth ball on the
board. Divide into three equal portions; let
them rest about ten minutes, and then shape them
into three 24 inch ropes.
Braid the ropes and place the braid on a large
greased cookie sheet shaping it into a wreath
(ring). Cover and let it rise about 15 to
20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 0R 400
degrees Fahrenheit.
Brush the wreath with the reserved egg white and
bake for about 30 to 45 minutes.
To make it special, color five hardboiled eggs
with food coloring. When the wreath is
completely cooled hollow out five equally spaced
spoon sized holes in the wreath and put the
colored eggs into them.
Lissi preparing the dough.
It shouldn't be too soft, the dough
must stay together. Cover the bowl
with a cloth, place in a warm place
to rise.
Then cut into small portions pieces.
With oiled hands take a piece and
stretch it as much as you can.
Heat oil in a pan & fry each piece
until both sides turn golden brown.
Drain on paper towel.
All these you have to knead, cover and let
to rest 45 minutes. Then you roll it flat, cut
rectangular pieces and form small balls. These
you let rest for 10 minutes, spread it out with
oily fingers and fry it in oil.
Baking Bread
by Ann Dreer
Ann recollects baking large amounts of
bread—duplicating her mother’s baking
methods.
Comments: With so many hints and
suggestions for bread recipes I thought
I'd put in my five cents worth.
When my three children where young, we moved
from Toronto to a farm. I baked nearly all of
our bread. It was an almost all-day job. I
used:
20 pounds of all-purpose flour
2 or 3 pounds of whole wheat or rye flour or
just added some bran.
2 cups shortening
1 cup salt
Enough lukewarm water to make medium firm
dough
The yeast (and sour dough) was always in
lukewarm water with a little sugar (it speeds it
up). I mixed the dough in a plastic baby
bathtub especially bought for that purpose.
Sometimes I saved some of the dough for the next
batch (sour dough). I let the dough lump dry. It
had to be soaked in lukewarm water to be used
again. I always used some yeast as well.
To give the bread a more sour dough taste, I
sometimes made the dough or the starter
the night before. . This was before we had
convection ovens; so it took quite some time to
bake all those loaves. I usually put two
on a large cookie sheet and very seldom used a
loaf pan. In the old country the loaves were
always round and high. When the bread was almost
done, it was brushed with water to make it
shiny. When I was little, my mother used a goose
feather for that. The water was called Plapperwasser.
If you gave it to small children to drink, he or
she would learn to talk sooner plappern).
In Croatia my mother only used white flour and I
believe she only used sour dough for
leavening, so she didn't have to buy yeast. We
always had white bread. It was always
baked in an outside oven where she was able to
bake a whole week's bread at once. Before
baking the dough was divided into loaves, which
were then put into baskets that were lined with
white towels to rise. The baskets were called
Backsimbl. The oven was preheated, usually
with cornstalks. To test the oven
temperature, she tied a goose feather* to a
stick and held it into the oven. If the
feather melted, the oven was hot enough.. The
cinders were pushed to the very back of the oven
and the individual loaves put in with a long
handled Brotschieber, a long pole with a round
board at the end like they use in pizza ovens.
If there was a bit of dough left, it was
flattened and baked with the bread. That was
called lepinje pronounced leppinnye (you didn't
really think pita bread was just recently
invented, did you?). This was
usually eaten with lard or drippings and salt
and paprika.
After the bread was finished, they put a pot of
beans into the oven. It was started to boil on
the stove and finished "baking" in the oven.
This was very practical in the summer, as they
didn't have to heat up the kitchen when cooking
beans. Not that they spent much time in
the kitchen
in the summer.
*Goose feathers were very versatile. When a
goose was prepared for cooking, the wings were
saved and used as Flederwisch as a handbrush for
sweeping out corners and hard-to-reach places.
Everlasting Yeast
by Alex Leeb
Comment: This is very much like
the sourdough recipes. Our
ancestors made their own yeast starter
since they couldn’t just step out to a
corner grocery store or a supermarket to
purchase yeast.
1 quart warm potato water
1/2 cake yeast or 1/2 tablespoon dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons flour
Stir in all ingredients and put in a warm
place to raise until ready to mix for
baking. Leave a small amount of
Everlasting Yeast for the next time you make
bread.
Keep in cool place and add to the Everlasting
Yeast all of the above ingredients except the
yeast. Do this each time and you will
never run out of yeast.
Now add the Everlasting Yeast that you took out
and make the bread the way you always do.
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