The Quest for Grandma's Bread Recipe

I made bread yesterday after church. Ground the wheat, mixed it up (thanks, Bosch!), formed into loaves, and baked it. The process is fairly routine and the bread was really good. But then it's hard to go wrong with homemade bread. . .

Anyway, as I was letting the Bosch do the work, I thought of the bread my grandmother used to make. She always made white bread, and baked it in the tall cans that tomato or pineapple juice came in. It was wonderful as is, but became fabulous when toasted. Grandma would cut thin slices, toast them, and spread with butter. The final product was crisp with a bit of a chewey texture.

This is the bread you dream about. It was part of my childhood and the memory is still crystal clear of grandma mixing bread in her tiny galley kitchen in the house on the hill in Bountiful, UT. She served it toasted for breakfast following sleepovers, with soup for dinner, or made into sandwiches for lunch. But toasted was best.

My mom said she asked grandma for the recipe years ago, and grandma told her it was easy, but mom never got the recipe. I've tried to re-create the recipe, to no avail. I've searched magazines and cookbooks from the 1950's for bread recipes and made a lot of them, but the texture just isn't the same. My dad said it was the flour grandma used. When he was growing up, he'd go to Lehi Roller Mills and purchase flour that grandma used to make bread. I've made the bread using Lehi Roller Mills flour. It was good, but it wasn't the same. I found a recipe in an old Sunset magazine that even called for baking the bread in a coffee can, but it wasn't exactly right, either. I baked through the bread recipes in my Aunt Catherine's cookbooks. I even found ward cookbooks from Emery, UT (where grandma was born and raised) and tried those recipes, but no luck there, either. Maybe the recipe never existed except in my grandmother's mind. Or is it possible that I'm remembering something exists only in my mind? Nah! The bread was real, and really good. So... if anyone out there has a write bread recipe from Lyle Brookhart, please send me a copy.

Here's the recipe I use for Whole Wheat Bread. It's a poor substitute for my grandmother's bread, but it's still pretty good. This recipe makes 6 good sized loaves. I use the Bosch; if using the KitchenAid, cut the recipe in half. Of course, you can also make the recipe by hand and get your arm workout while kneading the bread.

Whole Wheat Bread - adapted from the Bosch recipe

5 1/2 cups warm water

2/3 cup oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 TB wheat gluten

2 TB lemon juice

2 TB instant yeast (like SAF)

2 TB salt

11 - 13 cups whole wheat flour

In mixer, add water, oil, brown sugar, gluten, lemon juice, and 5 cups wheat flour. Use the "M" switch to incorporate. (Or turn the mixer on/off until ingredients are incorporated. Turn to speed 1 on Bosch, or low-medium speed on the KitchenAid and add flour 1 cup at a time with the salt until the dough scrapes away from the edges. Knead on speed 2 (Bosch) for 6 minutes, or knead with the dough hook in the KitchenAid.

Dump dough out onto a floured counter top and cut into 6 pieces. Shape into loaves and place in pans that have been sprayed with Pam. Let rise until double. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

A few notes from Lori:

The amount of flour you end up using will depend on the amount of moisture in your wheat and the amount of humidity in the air.

If you don't have quite enough whole wheat flour, finish with regular white flour. If you have extra wheat flour, place it in a ziplock bag and keep it in the freezer until the next time you make bread.

For this recipe, be sure to use the instant yeast. The instant yeast doesn't have to be proofed before adding the other ingredients, and you don't need to be too concerned about using water that's too hot in the recipe.

Dough enhancer is a standard ingredient in making whole wheat bread, but I haven't been able to find dough enhancer in NY. An Amish cookbook suggested adding lemon juice to whole wheat bread to improve the texture and retain freshness. I've made the bread several times now with lemon juice, and it seems to work just like the dough enhancer.

If you make the bread, let me know how it goes. And if you ever come across grandma's recipe for white bread, give me a call!

How About Some Crow?

Well, I've been eating crow this week. It was bound to happen at some time, I just didn't think it would be quite so soon following the broccoli disaster.

Last Monday we had the missionaries coming for dinner. I was making sweet and sour meatballs. It was just before 5:00 p.m. and everything was coming together on schedule. The doorbell rang and in the few minutes it took to greet the missionaries, walk them to the living room, and get back to the kitchen, the dish scortched. Badly. I thought I had turned the heat down when I went to answer the door, but evidently not.

And when I made such a big deal over the burned broccoli a few weeks ago (compliments of my very sweet but occasionally distracted husband), it only feels right to share my own kitchen mishap.

However, in my defense I'd like to state the following: I was cooking for others, I only left the pan for a moment, there was no smoke or stench of burned broccoli wafting through the house, and I was able to salvage the dinner. (Salvaging trick: added some barbecue sauce and smoke-flavored salt.)

So I'm eating crow, and you know what? It tastes a lot like chicken!

Houses and Homes

When you live with a man who designs homes for a living, you start to look at houses differently. Terms like Dutch gables, craftsman style, prairie style, farmhouse, contemporary, and oh, so many more start popping up in conversations (usually while we're driving miles and miles on the back roads of western NY). I've learned about space and proportion, and am starting to recognize "good" design over "bad" design.

Interestingly enough, we don't live in a house that Mark designed. We live in a relatively small apartment in the village of Williamsville, which is just a few miles away from Buffalo, NY. And ever since I moved here, it's felt like Mark's apartment - kind of like the house in Utah is referred to as "Lori's house." The apartment is filled with Mark's things, which reflect his tastes, his color preferences, and his style. For a long time, I felt almost like a visitor. And even today as I look around, I still see very little of myself in the apartment other than a decorative bowl on the counter and a new shower curtain.

But something was different today and I'm not quite sure when it happened. Because today as we were cleaning the house and getting ready for a client to visit, it felt like OUR home, not just Mark's apartment. Is it just a matter of time before the psyche is ready to accept another space as home, or is it something more? I'm thinking it's shared experiences, and patience, and compromise, and laughter, and tears, and forgiveness, and love woven into thousands of individual acts that create a home. Mentally, it's still hard to call anywhere but Bountiful, Utah "home" - but I think my heart is finally settling into western NY. Welcome home!