Tag: bread

Honey Rye Bread

For many years Jerri has occasionally added some rye flour to her basic white bread. It makes a flavorful variation on an excellent white bread. When she adds enough rye flour, the bread takes on a grayish cast, and so we call it Graubrot, which translates literally from German as gray bread.

Graubrot is the popular name for Mischbrot (mixed bread) in Nordrhein-Westfalen. It describes a bread that is made with both white and rye flours. Bakers vary the proportions to create many different kinds of bread and may add spices such as caraway, anise, fennel or coriander.

I remember eating Graubrot nearly every day when I studied in Münster (in Nordrhein-Westfalen). A baker at the farmer’s market sold it by weight, like meat or cheese. If you asked for a pound, he would cut a piece off a loaf, weigh it, wrap it in paper and tell you how much you owed. The loaves were large and round, weighing four or five pounds. A half loaf weighed about a kilogram and would last me for a week.

The recipe below does not produce authentic Graubrot, but it is a delicious rye bread much different from the versions sold in most bakeries and supermarkets in the United States. It makes two medium-sized loaves and a pan of dinner rolls. The milk and honey give it a slightly sweet taste.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup warm water (105 degrees or so)
1/4 tsp. sugar
2 1/4 tsp. (1 package) active dry yeast
2 cups milk
3 T butter
3 T honey
1 T salt
5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups rye flour

PROCEDURE:

First dissolve the sugar and yeast in the warm water and set it aside to proof. Melt the butter and warm the milk to about 105º and pour them into a large bowl. Stir in the salt and honey, beat a cup of white flour and a cup of rye flour into the milk, then stir in the yeast. Add the second cup of rye flour and beat well.

Add more white flour one cup at a time, beating well after each addition. When you have added enough flour, the dough will become hard to stir and start to come away from the sides of the bowl. The exact amount of flour needed depends on the humidity, kind of flour and other factors. When it is sticky but stiff, it is ready to knead.

Let the dough rest for five minutes, then turn it out onto a well-floured surface. Knead the dough until it is smooth and silky and is no longer sticky, seven to eight minutes. Grease the bread bowl with butter or shortening. Make the dough into a ball and put it in the bowl, turning it to cover it with grease. Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel and put it in a warm, draft-free place. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in bulk.

Grease two 4 1/2 by 8 1/2-inch loaf pans and an 8 or 9-inch baking pan.

Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it five or six turns to remove the gas. Cut the dough into three equal pieces. Form two of the pieces into loaves and put them into the loaf pans. Roll the remaining dough into a half-inch thick rectangle and cut it into nine pieces. Shape each piece into a roll and put them into the baking pan.

Cover the pans and let the dough rise again until it nearly reaches the tops of the pans. You can tell when the bread has finished rising by gently poking the top of the loaf. If the dimple remains, the loaf is ready to go into the oven. If it puffs out in a few seconds, the bread is not yet ready.

When the dough is nearing the tops of the pans, preheat the oven to 375º. Bake the rolls about twenty minutes and the loaves thirty to forty minutes. I suggest that you turn the loaves out of the pans after thirty minutes to test for doneness. Loaves are done when they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. If they do not sound hollow, bake them on the oven rack for an extra five or ten minutes. Remove them from the oven and place on a rack to cool.

For a shiny top crust, brush the loaves and rolls with an egg wash before putting them into the oven. Make the wash by beating a tablespoon of cold water into the white of an egg. Or you can brush the tops of the hot loaves with butter after you take them from the oven.

You can devour the rolls still warm from the oven with plenty of butter and jam, but the loaves slice better if you let them cool completely. This bread makes delicious toast too.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Susie, one of our nieces, mailed me a cookbook that she thought I would like. She was right. Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine by Norma Jean and Carole Darden is filled with family recipes, reminiscences and stories of a remarkable African-American family.

Inspired by a chance remark from a guest at a dinner party, the two sisters began a journey that took them back to places they remembered from childhood where they were welcomed by relatives and friends who shared recipes and memories. Their grandfather, Charles Henry Darden, was born a slave. In 1868 at the age of fourteen he appeared in Wilson, North Carolina where he supported himself by traveling door to door and repairing things for housewives and homeowners.

His lack of family and references at first worked against him, but his diligence, honesty and thrift impressed the parents of a girl he fell in love with and married. So began the history of the Darden family that Norma Jean and Carole record in their book. Charles Henry or “Papa” Darden soon opened a shop to sell produce from his garden and the wines he made as a hobby. The first recipe in the book is for his Strawberry Wine.

There are hundreds more from aunts (and some uncles) scattered across North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia and from the Sampson family in Ohio where their mother was born. Here is one for sweet potato biscuits from Aunt Annie, Papa and Momma Darden’s oldest daughter.

Sweet potato biscuits are a staple in the south. The husband of one of our nieces grew up in North Carolina. He tells me that super markets there sell packaged sweet potato biscuits, though he says they don’t taste as good as homemade ones.

I vaguely remember eating sweet potato biscuits on at least one occasion in Atlanta or possibly in New Orleans many years ago and wanting to try making them myself. The little book from Susie inspired me, and now I know how. You really should try them.

They are delicious hot from the oven or warmed in the microwave and slathered with butter.

INGREDIENTS:

1 sweet potato (large enough to make 1 cup mashed)
1/2 tsp. salt
Water
2 cups all-purpose flour + extra for kneading
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
3 T brown sugar
Dash of cinnamon
8 T (1/2 cup or 1 stick) butter
2/3 cup buttermilk

PROCEDURE:

Peel a medium sweet potato, cut it into six pieces and boil them in a two-quart saucepan with a half teaspoon of salt until the pieces are fork tender, about twenty minutes. Drain and mash them thoroughly.

Preheat the oven to 400º and melt a stick of butter. Wash your hands, as once again you will be handling dough. Grease a cookie sheet large enough to hold two dozen biscuits or use parchment paper cut to fit the cookie sheet.

Beat the melted butter into a cup of mashed sweet potato in a large mixing bowl.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into a medium bowl. Add three tablespoons of brown sugar and thoroughly blend the sugar into the flour mixture with a fork.

Stir a third of the dry ingredients into the sweet potatoes and beat until the batter is smooth. Beat half the buttermilk into the batter, then add the next third of dry ingredients and beat until smooth. Beat in the rest of the buttermilk, then stir in the last of the dry ingredients to make a dough that just starts to come away from the sides of the bowl. If necessary, stir in a little more flour to get the dough to the right consistency.

The dough will be sticky, so generously flour your work surface and hands. Using a spatula, scrape the dough from the bowl and turn it to cover the outside with flour. Flatten the dough slightly with your hand, then roll it to a generous half inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter or water glass to make biscuits two and half or three inches in diameter. Space them about an inch apart on the baking sheet. Gather the trimmings, press them together and roll the dough again until you have formed all the biscuits.

Put the baking sheet on a top shelf in the oven for fifteen to eighteen minutes until the biscuits are lightly browned. Serve them hot from the oven with plenty of butter.

NOTES: These biscuits have more sugar than ordinary baking powder biscuits, so they tend to brown too much on the bottom. The challenge is to bake them so they are done but not too dark on the bottom. Baking them high in the oven on parchment paper seems to help.