A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (50 page)

Two ¼-ounce packages active dry yeast

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₃
cup granulated sugar or raw sugar

½ cup very warm water (105° to 115° F.)

¾ cup very warm milk (105° to 115° F.)

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cup plus 3 tablespoons butter, melted

1 cup puréed cooked sweet potato

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

5 to 5½ cups unsifted unbleached all-purpose flour

• 1.
  Spritz 24 standard-size muffin pan cups with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
  
• 2.
  Combine the yeast, 1 teaspoon of the sugar, and the warm water in a small bowl, and set aside to “work” for about 5 minutes. It will bubble and froth.
  
• 3.
  Meanwhile, beat the remaining sugar, the milk,
  ¹
  /
  ₃
  cup melted butter, sweet potato purée, salt, lemon zest, and nutmeg in a large electric mixer bowl at low speed just enough to combine. When the yeast mixture is good and frothy, add and beat until smooth.
  
• 4.
  With the mixer at low speed, add 2 cups of the flour, then beat for 2 to 3 minutes at moderately high speed until elastic. Continue adding the flour, about ½ cup at a time, until you have a soft but manageable dough.
  
• 5.
  Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead vigorously for several minutes, adding only enough additional flour to keep the dough from sticking.
  
• 6.
  Shape the dough into a ball, place in a buttered bowl, then turn the dough in the bowl so the buttered side is up. Cover with a clean, dry cloth and set in a warm draft-free spot for about 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in bulk.
  
• 7.
  Punch the dough down, turn onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for about a minute. Divide the dough into 24 pieces of equal size, then from each piece, shape 3 same-size balls. Place 3 balls in each muffin pan cup and brush with the remaining melted butter.
  
• 8.
  Cover the rolls with a cloth and set in a warm, draft-free spot for about 30 minutes or until doubled in bulk. Toward the end of rising, preheat the oven to 375° F.
  
• 9.
  When the rolls are fully risen, bake in the lower third of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until nicely browned and hollow sounding when thumped.
  
• 10.
  Serve hot with plenty of fresh sweet butter.
  

FARMHOUSE BREAD

MAKES THREE
8 × 4 × 3-
INCH LOAVES

“My Aunt Zella Gray was a marvelous cook,” Florence Soltys told me when she handed me this old East Tennessee recipe. A maiden lady, Zella Gray lived near enough to the dairy farm where Florence grew up to share the loaves she baked. Now living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Florence still bakes Aunt Zella’s bread whenever her busy schedule permits. And lucky the family and friends who get to eat it.

2¼ to 2¾ cups very warm water (105° to 115° F.)

¼ cup sugar

Two ¼-ounce packages active dry yeast

8 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading

½ cup nonfat dry milk powder

1 tablespoon salt

½ cup firmly packed vegetable shortening or ½ cup (1 stick) butter, cut into pats

• 1.
  Place ½ cup of the warm water in a spouted 1-quart measure and mix in 1 tablespoon of the sugar and all of the yeast. Let stand in a warm spot for about 5 minutes or until frothy.
  
• 2.
  Meanwhile, combine 2 cups of the flour, the milk powder, salt, and remaining sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the shortening and using a pastry blender, cut into the dry ingredients until the texture of coarse meal. Mix in the remaining flour.
  
• 3.
  Add the yeast mixture and 1¾ cups of the remaining warm water and mix well, adding more of the water as needed to make a soft but workable dough.
  
• 4.
  Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a ball, place in a large buttered bowl, then turn the dough in the bowl so the buttered side is up.
  
• 5.
  Cover the dough with a clean, dry cloth and let rise in a warm, draft-free spot for about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk. Punch the dough down, cover, and again let rise until doubled in bulk—about 1 hour.
  
• 6.
  Punch the dough down once more, knead briefly on a lightly floured surface until satiny, then divide into three pieces of equal size. Quickly grease three 8 × 4 × 3-inch loaf pans, shape each piece of dough into a loaf, and place in the pans. Cover with a clean, dry cloth and let the loaves rise in a warm, draft-free spot for about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk. Toward the end of rising, preheat the oven to 350° F.
  
• 7.
  Bake the loaves on the middle oven shelf for 35 to 40 minutes or until richly browned and hollow sounding when thumped.
  
• 8.
  Remove the loaves from the oven. Let stand in the upright pans on wire racks for 5 minutes, then invert and turn right side up. Cool to room temperature before cutting.
  

If you burn your bread, it means your husband’s angry.

—
OLD SMOKIES SUPERSTITION

SALLY LUNN

MAKES A
10-
INCH TUBE LOAF

This lightest and loveliest of yeast breads, much prized in the Colonial South, is said to date back to the Jamestown Colony, specifically to 1619 when a shipload of “Virginia maides” arrived from England to keep house for the men who had settled there twelve years earlier. In
Food in England
(1954), Dorothy Hartley writes that the bread’s name comes from the cry made by a buxom lass hawking buns on the streets of Bath. “Yelled in good west-country French,” that cry was “Solet Lune! Soleilune! [sun and moon].” “An appropriate name,” Hartley reasons, “for a round bun, flat gold on top, and flat white below.” She adds that the buns were “an infernal trouble to make, taking from sunrise to sunset to ‘raise’.” Their tops were gilded with beaten egg yolks, and, Hartley continues, they were “split hot and embosomed in clouds of cream.” I will never forget my first bite of a quite different Sally Lunn at the King’s Arms in Colonial Williamsburg. I remember a waiter trundling a cart over to our table and cutting a fat wedge from a loaf that looked for all the world like angel food cake except that it was yellow. Even though I was no more than ten, I couldn’t wait to find a recipe for Sally Lunn. This one is adapted from a recipe found in the Jamestown Foundation files.

One ¼-ounce package active dry yeast

¼ cup very warm water (105° to 115° F.)

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cup butter, softened

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cup sugar

3 large eggs, beaten until frothy

1 cup warm milk (105° to 115° F.)

4 cups sifted all-purpose flour combined with 1 teaspoon salt

• 1.
  Butter a 10-inch tube pan well and set aside.
  
• 2.
  Mix the yeast into the warm water in a small bowl and set aside to soften for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, beat the butter and sugar in a large electric mixer bowl at high speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat just enough to combine.
  
• 3.
  Combine the softened yeast with the warm milk, then, with the mixer at low speed, add the flour alternately with the yeast mixture, beginning and ending with the flour.
  
• 4.
  Remove the bowl from the mixer, cover with a clean, dry cloth, then set in a warm, draft-free spot for about 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in bulk.
  
• 5.
  Stir the dough down, then pour into the tube pan, spreading as evenly as possible. Again cover with a cloth and set in a warm spot to rise until doubled in bulk; this second rising will take 30 to 40 minutes. Toward the end of rising, preheat the oven to 350° F.
  
• 6.
  When the dough is fully risen, bake the Sally Lunn in the lower third of the oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until nicely browned and hollow sounding when thumped.
  
• 7.
  Remove the Sally Lunn from the oven and cool in the upright pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Using a thin-blade spatula, loosen the bread around the edge and around the central tube, then invert on a large round platter.
  
• 8.
  Cut the Sally Lunn into wedges and serve warm with fresh sweet butter.
  

MORAVIAN SUGAR CAKE

MAKES
12
SERVINGS

“Cake” is a misnomer, for this is a delicate yeast bread dimpled with melted butter and brown sugar. I buy it whenever I go to Old Salem, a faithfully restored Moravian town on the south side of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Sugar cake is still baked at the 200-year-old Winkler Bakery there, and I’ve watched the staff, in period dress, knead and shape the dough. Sugar cake is also served for breakfast at the nearby Brookstown Inn, an old cotton mill given new life as a luxury bed-and-breakfast.

One ¼-ounce package active dry yeast

¼ cup granulated sugar

½ cup very warm water (105° to 115° F.)

¼ cup firmly packed mashed potatoes, at room temperature

1 tablespoon nonfat dry milk powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted

1 large egg, at room temperature

2¼ to 2½ cups unsifted all-purpose flour

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cup firmly packed light brown sugar mixed with ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1.
  Generously spritz a 15 × 10 × 1-inch jelly-roll pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
  
• 2.
  By hand, combine the yeast, ½ teaspoon of the sugar, and ¼ cup of the warm water in a large electric mixer bowl and let stand for 5 minutes or until the yeast activates and the mixture froths.
  
• 3.
  Add the remaining sugar and the remaining water, the potatoes, dry milk, salt, ¼ cup of the melted butter, the egg, and ½ cup of the flour. Beat at low speed just long enough to combine, raise the mixer speed to high, and beat for about 2 minutes or until satiny. With the mixer at low speed, add 1½ cups of the remaining flour, ½ cup at a time, and continue beating after each addition to incorporate.
  
• 4.
  Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for about 2 minutes, working in the remaining ¼ to ½ cup flour until you have a soft, workable dough.
  
• 5.
  With well-buttered hands, pat the dough over the bottom of the jelly-roll pan, stretching and pushing to the edge and into the corners. Brush the dough with 1 tablespoon of the remaining melted butter, then set the uncovered pan in a warm, draft-free spot for about 30 minutes or until doubled in bulk. Toward the end of rising, preheat the oven to 375° F.
  
• 6.
  When the dough is fully risen, poke deep holes all over the surface with your fingers, scatter the brown sugar mixture evenly over all, then drizzle with the remaining butter. Again set uncovered in a warm, draft-free spot, this time for 10 to 15 minutes or until the dough has risen as high as the rim of the pan.
  
• 7.
  Bake the sugar cake on the middle oven shelf for 18 to 20 minutes or until lightly browned and springy-firm to the touch.
  
• 8.
  Remove from the oven, cool in the upright pan on a wire rack for about 20 minutes, then cut into large squares and serve.