Easter Bread

Traditional Recipe for Egerländer Weihnachtsstollen

Langos / Langosch 'crispy fried dough'

Making Bread

Everlasting Yeast

Easter Bread Posted by: Ann Dreer

• 3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 package yeast

• ½ cup sugar

• ¾ teaspoon salt

• ½ cup lukewarm milk

• ½ cup butter (or margarine)

• 2 eggs

• 1 egg yolk (save the egg white for the glaze)

• Grated lemon or orange rind (raisins optional)

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.

Langos / Langosch 'crispy fried dough' Posted by: Jody McKim A delicious treat, made by Lizzi Ingrisch

Delicious with sour cream, grated cheese, paprika & fresh garlic oil.

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 Posted 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:

1. 20 pounds of all-purpose flour

2. 2 or 3 pounds of whole wheat or rye flour or
   just added some bran.

3. 2 cups shortening

4. 1 cup salt

5. 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 Posted 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.