Tag: bread

Buttermilk White Bread

My mother used many different liquids to make bread. Water of course, but also potato water she saved when she boiled potatoes, milk, sour milk and buttermilk. Each of them changed the texture and flavor of the breads, but we devoured them all. For us, bread really was the staff of life. I think that we had bread for every meal except those when we had pancakes or waffles.

If we exclude the cinnamon rolls and sticky buns that she made with egg batter doughs, my favorite breads were the ones she made with sour milk or buttermilk.

Buttermilk adds a subtle flavor to bread and I like the texture. This has become my “basic” white bread recipe, at least when buttermilk is available. Whenever possible I like to use hard wheat bread flour, but the recipe works with all purpose flour as well.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups buttermilk
1 package or 2 heaping tsp. active dry yeast
2/3 cup water
2 T butter
2 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
5 to 6 cups white flour

PROCEDURE:

Put 2/3 cup warm water (90º to 110º) in a cup with 1/4 teaspoon sugar and stir in the yeast. While the yeast is proofing, warm the buttermilk to about 110 degrees and pour it into a large bowl. Stir in the salt and sugar. Melt the butter and add it to the buttermilk.

Stir in the flour one cup at a time, beating thoroughly between additions. After three cups of flour have been stirred in, mix in the yeast. Continue adding flour one cup at a time until the dough becomes stiff and begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Let the dough rest in the bowl for five minutes, then scrape it out on to a well floured work surface with a spatula and use the spatula to turn the dough to coat it with flour before starting to knead it. Powder your hands with flour, and knead the dough until it is smooth and satiny, about seven to eight minutes.

If you have never kneaded dough, you should check out Wikihow.com for an excellent lesson on kneading or go to Thekitchn.com for a good video showing you how to do it. Actually, doing both is a good idea.

Return the dough to a greased bowl, roll it to cover the surface lightly with grease, and cover the bowl with a damp towel. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in bulk. Punch it down and knead it on a lightly floured work surface five or six strokes, then divide the dough into two parts. Form the halves into loaves and put them into greased 9 x 5 inch pans.

Cover the pans with the damp cloth and set them in a warm draft-free place to let the loaves rise. Preheat the oven to 375º once the loaves have started rising.

When the the dough has risen to slightly above the top of the pans, put them on the center shelf in the oven. After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 350º and bake 25 to 30 minutes longer.

After 25 minutes, remove the loaves from the pans and tap on the bottom of the loaves. They are done when they sound hollow. Bake an extra five minutes or so on the oven rack if necessary.

Remove the loaves from the oven and cool them on a rack. Slice with a serrated knife and serve with butter, jam or whatever!

NOTES: If there is no buttermilk in the house, make sour milk with two tablespoons vinegar and enough milk to make two cups. Mom greased her bread bowls with lard, vegetable shortening, butter, oleomargarine or even bacon grease. They all work, though you may notice slight differences in flavor.

Patsy’s Buttermilk Biscuits

There are times when baking powder biscuits are indispensable. Sausage gravy, for instance, demands light, tender homemade biscuits hot from the oven.

Unfortunately, mine were neither light nor tender. Though some family members have disagreed, I still think that my biscuits were edible when hot from the oven and covered with gravy or spread generously with butter and jam. And once they had cooled, they could be used for coasters, hockey pucks or skeet practice.

It took courage to make them. Every few months I would try, with no noticeable improvement. Instead of floating down on the plate, they dropped, like ceramic coasters, with an annoying clinking sound. It also took courage to eat them. My victims/guests would ask for extra gravy or more jam.

A few weeks after I mentioned the problem to my sister Patsy, who is an excellent cook, I received the following email:

“Just thought I’d pass on this recipe for biscuits. It is from my Betty Crocker Cookbook and is my favorite for buttermilk biscuits. They always turn out well for me. Give them a try sometime.”

And so I did, and they were at least ten times better than any of my earlier efforts. Here is the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups flour
2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 T milk

PROCEDURE:

Heat the oven to 400º F and bring the buttermilk to room temperature.

Sift the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Cut in the shortening as you would for pie crust until it looks like cornmeal, and then add the buttermilk. Add a little more buttermilk if it looks too dry. Turn the dough out and knead it on a a floured board about fifteen turns, just until the dough forms a smooth ball.

Roll the dough to about a half inch thick and cut it with a water glass or doughnut cutter and place the biscuits an inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Brush the tops with a little milk. Bake the biscuits for ten to twelve minutes or until they are lightly browned.

NOTES: Don’t knead the dough too long or the biscuits will be tough. You may have to make these biscuits a couple of times until you can recognize when you have kneaded the dough enough but not too much. Incidentally, a turn is rolling the dough over after you press it down and turning it a quarter turn.

The dough should be a half inch thick. A little thicker is better than too thin. You should end up with a dozen biscuits.