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Prep Time: 0 Minutes Cook Time: 0 Minutes |
Ready In: 0 Minutes Servings: 16 |
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A recipe from a 1960 Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, it's something I make every year during the holiday season and also makes a great home-style gift. It's best made with candied fruit rather than candied fruit peel. Ingredients:
2 packets of dry yeast |
1/2 cup warm water |
3/4 cup milk, scalded |
1/2 cup sugar |
1/4 cup butter |
1.5 teaspoon salt |
4.25 to 5.25 cups of plain flour |
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind |
2 eggs |
1.5 cups of diced candied fruit |
an icing made of confectioner's sugar with a bit of milk stirred in |
Directions:
1. I have altered this recipe to use modern appliances that didn't exist back then, 47 years ago.
2. The prep time doesn't include rising time. Go take a nap, a walk, see your lover.
3. Measure the milk into a small pan and put it on the heat to scald
4. Using the same cup, measure 1/2 cup of warm water and empty the yeast into it, stir a bit
5. When the milk is scalded, add the sugar, the salt and the butter and let it melt and cool to tepid.
6. Put the tepid milk mixture into a very large bowl and add 2 cups of flour and the lemon peel. Using dough hooks, beat until it is smooth.
7. Beat in the two eggs, one by one, and then add and beat in the yeast mixture.
8. Add 2.25 cups of flour and beat it in. Continue to beat in flour, half cup by half cup, until you leave the batter stage and reach a soft dough stage.
9. Flour a counter and scrape the dough out onto the flour. Flour your hands and knead until it becomes stretchy and smooth. You will probably incorporate quite a bit of flour, just don't take it as far as bread dough. Then, one-third at a time, knead in the diced candied fruit.
10. Oil a very large bowl and put the dough into it, turning in order to oil all sides of it. Cover it well (I use a bowl one size smaller upside down like a dome. Put in a warm place for 1.5 to 2 hours, until it has doubled in bulk. (I warm the oven, put it in and turn the oven off.)
11. When it has risen, punch it down and form two oval loaves of the dough. Place them on baking paper on a large cookie sheet, cover with more baking paper and leave to rise for a further 1.5 hours.
12. Preheat the oven to 150°C or 300°F. Remove the paper covering. Slide the breads in on a rack NOT at the bottom, but leaving plenty of room to rise - you may need to remove an upper rack. Bake 30 minutes.
13. Remove the loaves to cooling racks.
14. Make the icing and drizzle it over the loaves while they are still warm.
15. Properly wrapped, the unfrosted loaves freeze perfectly. Frosted ones less perfectly.
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