Batterway Bread

Many years ago, when Jeffrey was about 12, he found a little, old cookbook called Food from Famous Kitchens. It's a compilation of recipes probably from the backs of packages, or published in magazines, since each mentions some product by name. The pages were yellowed, cheap paper, and had broken into a couple of clumps within the book, but it was a hardcovered book. Since it was on the "10 for $1" table, he hauled a dime out of his pocket and bought it for me. I was straightening out the counter on which my cookbooks reside recently, and found it stuffed in behind a couple of other things. Thumbing through one of the clumps of pages, I found a number of recipes from Red Star Yeast. Well, you know that it was time to make my first "new kind of bread" of the year!

RED STAR BATTERWAY BREAD

1-1/2 cups warm water (around 110F)
6 tsp yeast
4 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, cut in small pieces or melted and cooled

Place all ingredients in this order in the bread machine, and let it knead. Stop the machine, remove the dough, and split into two loaf pans.

To mix by hand: Pour the water into a bowl, sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit for a couple of minutes, until it softens. Stir in the sugar and flour, then the salt and butter. (Or just let a mixer do the work). Knead or beat at low speed for 5 to 10 minutes, until the dough is well combined and smooth, then split into two loaf pans.
Let the dough rise until it's doubled in size, then bake at 375 for 25 to 30 minutes. Because it's got a lot of butter in it, the crust will be dark, but very thin and soft. This bread rises quite high, and is really soft - I find that cutting it actually mashes it down a little bit. I've made it twice now, and not a single slice has made it past dinnertime - despite the fact that bread is an auxiliary starch in my house, and never the main starch! So, try it; I hope you'll like it as much as we did.