Tag: Yeast bread

Little Brioches

Little Brioches

by Andi Cohen-Rabiner ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A Recipe from Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery Vol. 2 (1967)

About the Recipe

My son Maxx has been reading a book called The Bakery Dragon. It’s about a little dragon who is not great at stealing gold, but after getting stranded with a baker in her bakery during a storm, discovers that he’s very good at baking gold. So what does Maxx say to me this morning? “Mommy, I want to make some gold!” Into the stacks we went to find the perfect golden bread recipe.

This was actually my first time making a brioche, outside of a challah loaf here and there. The dough is so sweet and buttery delicious. This was actually a fairly simple recipe, especially if you learn from some of my mistakes:

  • Let your butter get soft and your eggs come to room temperature. The butter is meant to melt down after you pour the hot milk over it. Mine… did not. And I spent about 10 extra minutes at the microwave slowly melting my butter down 10 seconds at a time.
  • Don’t rush to get your butter to melt. You’ll lose some of the tenderness to the bread if you just melt the butter down all at once. Take your time.
  • I only used about 5 1/2 cups of flour all told. Don’t forget that the water content in your butter and milk, the size of your eggs, even your elevation will change how much you need. Go one cup at a time and slow to a few tablespoons as you get closer to dough texture.
  • I highly recommend beating and kneading this dough by hand. I use a wooden spoon to beat and my own two hands to knead to the right texture. I swear it comes out better. And you’ll get to know what dough feels like when it’s ready to prove.
  • Check your oven for a Proof setting. It makes a massive difference in rise.

These little buns were so yummy coming out of the oven with just a little bit of good butter. Can’t wait to have one with breakfast!

About the book

I inherited my grandma’s entire Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery. It’s a 12-volume set published 1966-67, created by the editors of Woman’s Day Magazine. It’s in alphabetical order, and Volume 2 goes from Beef Cook Book to Canapes. I’ve tried a few recipes from various volumes, and it was clearly well used by my grandma. Definitely a winner of a set with delightful photos to boot!

The Recipe!

Ingredients:
2 packages active dry yeast or 2 cakes compressed yeast
1/4 cup water*
3/4 cup milk, scalded
1 cup butter or margarine (softened)
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
6 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
5 eggs (room temperature)

Directions:
Sprinkle or crumble yeast into water. *Use very warm water (105*F to 115*F) for dry yeast; use lukewarm (80*F to 90*F) for compressed. Let stand a few minutes; then stir until dissolved.

Pour hot milk over butter, sugar, and salt; cool to lukewarm. Add 2 cups flour and beat well. Add yeast and beat. Cover and let rise until bubbly. Stir down.

Add 4 eggs and beat well. Add enough more flour to make a soft dough. Turn out on floured pastry cloth or board and knead until smooth and satiny. Put into greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.

Punch down and divide dough into 24 small pieces. From each piece, cut a small piece. Shape large pieces into balls and put into well-greased 2 3/4-inch muffin cups. Shape small pieces in balls. Make indentation in center of each large ball by pressing with thumb. Press small balls into indentations.

Let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. Mix 1 egg and 1 T water. Brush rolls with mixture.

Bake in preheated moderate oven (375*F) for 15 minutes. To freeze, wrap in foil. Reheat, wrapped, in slow oven (300*F).

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Bread

by Andi Cohen-Rabiner ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A Recipe from Meta Given’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking (1949)

About the Recipe

My husband and I were watching Great British Bake Off, and it was bread week. So of course he looked at me and said “you haven’t made any bread lately. You should make some bread.” And here we are. I was looking for something a little bit different, maybe something fall inspired. When I saw this pumpkin bread, I thought it looked like a good challenge. And indeed, it was neither quick nor easy, but wow oh wow is it delicious.

I consider myself to be fairly okay at dealing with bread. Most of my loaves turn out well, if not great. I also don’t like to use the dough hook on my mixer, I really like mixing and kneading by hand. I know what a great bread feels like in my fingers and under my palm. All of that said – this was such a wet dough to start out and I nearly gave up in a moment where I was wrist deep in sticky, wet, spicy dough. I’m very glad that I kept up and completed the loaves.

I chose to use the variation mentioned in the book and added the spices (basically pumpkin pie spice if you want to just throw some in). It gave the bread some depth of flavor and a slight sweet, spiciness that tastes very specifically like fall. I highly recommend it.

At the end of the day, you’ll walk out of this recipe with 3 beautiful, shareable loaves of kind of unique yeasted bread. They should have a slight crunch to their crust and be nice and chewy when you bite into them. For an added bonus, toast a slice up, add some butter and just a little bit of cinnamon sugar or vanilla sugar on top. YUM!

How to shape the loaf

It’s mentioned in the directions to shape the loaf according to some specific instructions. Here they are if you’d like to use them:

About the book

Meta’s encyclopedia is famous in cookbook collecting circles. She’s got tips, tricks, menus, essays, pictures, everything a home cook needs to be successful in the kitchen. And it’s really a great resource. These recipes stand the test of time in a way that a lot of others from the same time don’t. My only regret is that I only have Volume 1! I’ll find the rest of it someday…

The Recipe!

Ingredients:

2 packages dry granular yeast or 2 cakes compressed yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1/4 cup sugar
1 2/4 cups milk, scalded
1 T salt
8 to 8.5 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 cups pureed cooked pumpkin (or canned)
1/4 cup melted shortening or vegetable oil

Variation:
1 t ginger
2 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
1 t grated orange rind

Directions:

Soften yeast in the water with 1 teaspoon of the sugar. Let stand 10 minutes. Combine hot milk, salt, and the remaining sugar, stir and cool to lukewarm. Combine yeast and cooled milk mixtures and stir to blend.

Add 2.5 cups of the flour and beat until batter is very smooth. Add the pumpkin and the cooled shortening and mix well. Add enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff dough, use any remaining flour on the board for kneading and shaping the dough.

Turn dough out on a lightly floured board. Cover dough with bowl, let rest 10 minutes then knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Round up and place in a greased bowl, turn once to bring greased side up. Cover and let stand in a warm place (86*F) and let rise until double in bulk (about 1 hour). 

Punch down dough, turn over in bowl, and let rise again until double in bulk (about 45 minutes). Turn out on board and divide into 3 equal portions. Quickly round up each portion, cover with bowls and let rest for 10 minutes on board.

Shape into loaves (see reference photos above). Place in greased loaf pans (8 1/4 x 4 1/2 x 2 3/4 inches). Cover and let rise in a warm place (86*F) until double in bulk and sides of dough reach top of pan, and center is well rounded (1 hour).

Bake in moderately hot oven (400*F) for 15 minutes, reduce heat to moderate (375*F) and continue baking 20-30 minutes longer until well browned. Turn out on racks to cool, uncovered and away from drafts.