This white bread bake is definitely the most interesting bake I’ve done in a while. I used a recipe from my grandparents bakery, plus they were baked in pans from that same bakery.
With the pandemic and me not always being the most sociable person around, I hadn’t seen my grandma in quite a while. But with my mom recently retiring, she was out there for a visit so I decided to just take a day off work and head up. It was a long overdue visit with some family.
My mom and grandma were doing some cleaning and came across a box of pans that had been stored for a very very long time. I excitedly got to pick some out to take home, which are what these loaves are sitting in. My grandma confirmed that these pans would have been used in my grandpa’s first bakery back in 1949 in Benito, MB.
The Pans
I’m not entirely sure when they would have been used last but it did take some effort to get them cleaned up. I spent and evening soaking, scrubbing, soaking, scrubbing, trying different cleaners, over and over. After getting them to a state where I was happy, I threw them in the oven to get them nice and dry. After they were dry they got a wipe on the inside with some oil and put back in the oven briefly. Maybe it was because I had used my cast iron pan that morning so it felt like that’s what was supposed to happen. Either way, after a nice burn on my forearm messing around with these they were ready to go.
For a while I was trying to figure out what I should bake first in them but nothing stood out. Then I remembered my mom mentioning that she had a recipe book from the bakery. Which would make for perfect first go with these pans. Of course the size of the recipe was for a very large amount of loaves. I had to do some math to try and get it down to a two loaf equivalent.
The White Bread Recipe
It started as a 175 white bread loaf recipe. The conversion is pretty simple though. Convert the initial weights to percentages. Convert the 1 lb loaf to grams. Decide how many loaves you want. Get their total weight. Multiply the percentages and you’re done. Granted, I had to stop and think for a while to figure this out. The only thing I changed from the original is using “nonfat dry milk solids”. Which I assumed was milk powder, so I swapped the water for milk and called it good. The hydration will get a increase on the next attempt. The loaves are still great but my stand mixer wasn’t thrilled kneading the dough for 10-15 minutes (the recipe calls for 30-40 minutes of kneading!).
The Results
The work that went into these were well worth it. I’m not sure if it was using the milk or bread flour for this recipe but it was by far my favourite simple white bread I’ve made. The center came out super chewy and flavourful and smelt amazing, like all homemade bread does. What was even better is that I had braised some beef ribs the day before so shredding that with some jalapeno monterey jack cheese was absolutely perfect!
It turns out there were a lot more interesting recipes in my moms books. So my plan is to get my hands on some of those to try out, so keep your eyes open…..Whenever I have some extra time, which is in short supply lately…
Great write up!
You write beautifully and lovely..your white breads family recipe the breads looks just wonderful….must taste amazing too…mmmmmmm
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