World Bread Day 2009

How could I not bake bread today after reading this blog!

I noticed it last week and have been thinking of what to bake.

Finally yesterday, I have decided to bake our special rolls.

This is another recipe I got when I was in high school and still make it to this day. My mom always made the 'Sweet Rolls' in the 1950 series Betty Crocker book, it makes 1 dozen at a time. She always made 2 dozen for us and a dozen each for the neighbors at Christmas time. They all knew when I would come to borrow a cookie sheet that they would get a pan of rolls back. So I have always tried to pass this tradition on wherever I live, the neighbors love it. My grandchildren expect these rolls every Christmas, and when I dare try something new, they say, "GRANDMA, where are our rolls?"

Here they are, hope you enjoy the recipe! It makes enough to share.

Where would we be without Zorra, to keep us making breads? Thanks for sponsoring this day Zorra!

Easy Refrigerator Rolls

4 packages dry-yeast

4 cups water water

1 cup sugar (* see note)

1/2 cup shortening (can use 1/4 cup shortening and 1/4 cup butter, or 1/2 cup butter)

2 teaspoons salt

2 eggs

12-14 cups flour

Dissolve yeast in water let sit about 5 minutes to proof.

Stir in sugar,salt,shortening and eggs.

Sift flour. Mix in flour with hand until dough is easy to handle.

Turn onto lightly floured board. Knead until smooth and elastic.

Place greased-side up in a greased bowl.

Cover with damp cloth, place in refrigerator.

In about 1 hour, shape into your favorite kind of rolls (I like the knot kind).

Let rise.

Heat oven to 400 degrees, bake 12-15 minutes.

After brown, and out of oven, brush lightly with butter.
Makes 4-6 dozen, depending on type of roll you make.

The original recipe says it makes 8 dozen rolls, if you like super little rolls, you can probably get that many.

Sometimes I make them big enough for sandwiches, other times small for dinner rolls.

*note: you can make this recipe using 1/2 cup sugar, instead of the whole cup.

**I did make this without 1 cup of sugar and used 1/2 cup, still tastes great! More like bread than sweet bread.

Don't know why when I blogged this, that Oct 8 came up. Must learn more about blogging.

A Treasure

Here is an article about my father- Glenn Utterback. I was excitied to find it among the recipes from my mother's recipe file box. What a treasure to me!

I received this box yesterday from my sister and read every recipe in it. It makes me remember all the times my mom baked from these special recipes during the holiday seasons. I will be adding the recipes to the group, 'My Best Recipes" on facebook.

Back to the article, it says: "Glenn Utterback, who will soon be resigning as Cubmaster of Santa Fe Springs Pack 553-C, due to a job transfer to the Azusa area, was given an appreciation party at the home of the Hugh Hartleys at .... L...... Ave, Friday evening. Over two dozen adult leaders and parents of the pack were in attendance and Utterback was presented a plaque from the pack attesting to his popularity during the time he served as Cubmaster as well as in other roles during the life of the pack. He was also presented a wrist watch by interested parents who wished to show him their personal appreciation for the time he'd given the Cub Scouts.

His wife, Emma, who has served as den mother of the Den 2 for the past two years also received a gift."

I am so glad to have found this and remind me of my father as a Cubmaster, it is nice to know that others cared for my parents. We moved to Azusa back in 1959, so this article is from that time period. I can remember when we put on a little skit that was done as a small movie. It was in the backyard of our house and my mother painted on huge cardboards the scene of a western general store, the cub scouts all had parts and even I got to be in it. Everywhere my older brother went as a scout, I got to tag along. Sometimes I wonder if he minded me being active in his scouting program. That was a time when I liked being the younger sister.

Anyway, my father and mother were both active in the scouting programs for both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. I am hoping some of the pictures show up of these scouting days.

Grandkids and grandma in the kitchen!

Last Saturday around 3 p.m. my granddaughter remembered we were going to a church potluck, where we were suppose to make a dish and share it for different contests.

The dinner, I thought started at 6:30 p.m. So we pulled out one of Seth's cookbooks, each found a recipe we wanted to try and got started.

Kalene started first with the recipe, 'Vanilla Rings'. As she was pounding whole almonds into ground almonds, Seth got his ingredients together. I went to the store to buy some yogurt as we were actually out. They did an awesome job, all by themselves and both of their cookie batches came out so delicious!

In the recipe that Kalene chose, she decided to add melted chocolate on top. What a great idea and it made the cookies.

I haven't tasted a sugar type cookie with ginger in it before, Seth's were a light type with just a little crunch as they cooled off. 'Grantham Gingerbreads' is the recipe Seth chose.

I decided to make a bread that I needed to enter a recipe for Bread Baking Day, 'Lemon Poppyseed Braid'. Post is below this one.

When we got to church, we found out the dinner started at 6 p.m., but lucky for us there were others who were late and plenty of food. Everyone was glad I brought bread as only two others did and this helped to be spread around, same with the kids bringing cookies. We must have chosen the right recipes as we didn't take anything home, yeah!

I think everyone who brought a dish should have won, everything was great! Very filling night.

Recipes:

Vanilla Rings

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup ground almonds

3 cups flour

• Preheat the oven to 350˚F.
• Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl, or use a food processor on a low speed, until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the egg, then the vanilla extract, almonds, and flour.
• Put the paste into a decorating bag fitted with a star-shaped tip.
• Pipe 2-inch rings on to a greased baking sheet.
• Bake for 8 to 9 minutes.

Recipe by: Deborah Gray

Book: the baker’s bible

Grantham Gingerbreads

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons self-rising flour

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 stick butter or margarine

1 ½ cups superfine sugar

1 egg, beaten

• Preheat oven to 300˚F.
• In one bowl, sift together the flour and the giner.
• In another bowl, beat together the butter or margarine and sugar, then beat in the egg.
• Stir in the flour mixture and combine well.
• Roll the dough into a walnut-sized balls.
• Place the balls on a greased baking tray and bake for about 40 minutes until crisp, hollow, and lightly browned.

*Note: These round puffy gingerbread cookies should be “hollow and slightly dome-shaped, with a pleasing fawn tint.”

Recipe by: Deborah Gray

Book: the baker’s bible

BBD #23 “Something You’ve Never Made Before"

This is my granddaughter's hand, giving this recipe a thumbs up for the recipe I chose for the BBD #23 hosted by Nick of imafoodblog.com. Thanks Nick and group for hosting this month. Will be making this bread again.

Slightly sweet, flavored with lemon, and full of poppy seeds, tender delicious bread! Here is the bread I decided to make for the BBD #23. It took me way too long to figure out which bread I wanted to try, that I have not made. Well an opportunity came up for a church potluck, so got out one of my grandson's cookbooks and went to work. Here is what I baked and it did win a prize for using whole grains!

Lemon Poppyseed Braid

1 egg

½ cup lemon yogurt (the store was out of lemon yogurt, so I used plain and added to 2 tablespoons of juice from a lemon.)

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons sugar

1 ½ tablespoons poppyseeds

2 teaspoons grated lemon peel

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup unbleached bread flour

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1 ½ teaspoons yeast

Glaze or egg wash:

1 egg white beaten with 2 teaspoons water

• Beat egg with yogurt, butter, sugar, poppyseeds, and lemon zest.
• Sift together the flours, yeast and salt.
• Stir all of the ingredients together to get the flours wet. You may need to add more unbleached flour, (as I did, almost another 1 cup).
• Knead the dough by hand until soft and not too wet.
• Put dough into a well-greased bowl and let rise for about 1 hour.
• When the dough has doubled in size take out of bowl and knead onto a lightly floured surface.
• Cut dough into 3 equal pieces and roll into a rope, about 14” long.
• Braid the three ropes into a braid and put onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (Can use a greased cookie sheet.)
• Cover dough and rise until doubled, about 30-40 minutes.
• Brush top of dough with egg-water wash.
• Bake bread in a preheated oven 350˚F until golden, 25-35 minutes. Make sure dough is done in middle, use the toothpick method to check.

Orginal recipe by: Deborah Gray of the baker's bible