Traditions - continued

I've talked a lot about growing up in the country on a farm and my Grandmother. She lived only 1/4 of a mile from our house so as a kid, walking to her house was fun plus she was in the kitchen most times cooking or baking. Walking into her house was fun because you never knew what she had been making but her house smelled so good.


My grandmother loved to entertain and to help her out, she would "hire" me for her dinners where I would help to prepare the food, serve the food and then clean up. This gave her the opportunity to be the quintessential hostess.


Helping out in the kitchen was fun and I loved to "show-off" my culinary talents by making danish pastry, yeast bread and also desserts. During the Christmas holidays helping my grandmother was the most fun and besides, I'd be the first to try out her specialities. One of those specialities was Zwiebach. This is a German bread our family would make EVERY (yes every) Saturday. Since Germans typically ate their main meal at noon, I would have this bread just coming out of the oven in time for "dinner". Then for supper, the main menu would be leftover Zwiebach with milk mixed together in a bowl, some type of cold cuts and some type of canned fruit. The key to good Zwiebach is to "kanniep (prounced Kanneep) the small balls into a stacked roll. Learning this technique took me several years to master but I was eventually able to get it right.

Zwiebach

2 cups scalded milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup lard or shortening
Mix the scalded milk together with the sugar and lard. Add
2 teaspoons salt

2 packages dry acting yeast
1/2 cup warm water
In the warm water, add the yeast and let it develop for approximately 5 minutes. Set aside.

In the liquid mixture, add 2 cups of flour and beat the mixture until it is elastic. Add yeast mixture and beat again. Add 2 more cups of flour and continue beating until elastic. Add 2 more cups of flour and beat again. Let rest for 10 minutes with a damp towel over the bowl.

Turn dough out onto a floured board or surface and knead for 10 minutes until elastic adding flour gradually while kneading. You know when you're done when the dough bounces back when you poke it.

Place the dough in a greased bowl covered with the damp towel. Let rise until double. Punch down and let rise again for about 45 minutes. Pinch off a handful of dough with greased hands using your thumb and forefinger, "kanniep" (or cut with your fingers) a medium ball. Using the same technique, "kanniep" a smaller ball and place on top of the medium ball. Using your forefinger, punch the to of the stacked balls to make sure they stay together. Continue this until all the dough has been used up. Let rise until double. Bake at 400 degrees until light golden. This makes two cookie sheets worth of rolls.

You can eat these right out of the oven or later.

I don't make these often but for special occasions, I'll pull out all the stops and create the Zwiebach.

If you want to make this a modernized recipe, cut the recipe in half and use a bread mixer or stand alone mixer to make the dough. Be sure to place the "wet" ingrediants first in the bread mixer and then add the flour, and sugar last.