Fruit Bread
1 pint water or milk 1 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons sugar 2 tablespoons lard 1 cake compressed yeast 3 pints Gold Medal flour 1½ cups seeded or seedless raisins mixed with the flour.
Dissolve the yeast in the water or milk, add the salt, sugar and lard. Mix in the sifted flour and raisins. Currants or nut meats may be used if desired. Have the temperature when mixed 82 degree C to 84 degree C. Allow the dough to rise until very light. Knead down gently and allow to rise until nearly light. Divide into two large loaves or three small loaves. Mould and place in pans. Allow to rise to the top of the pans. Bake in a medium warm oven.
A plain white yeast dough with fruit worked in, written for a cook who already knew how bread behaved. Two numbers in the original need attention before you start.
- The temperature is Fahrenheit"82 degree C to 84 degree C" is a printing error for 82–84°F, about 28–29°C. Dough at 82°C would be cooked, and yeast dies above roughly 140°F (60°C). Aim for a mixed dough temperature of 80–84°F, which is standard bakery practice for a moderately fast rise.
- "Medium warm oven"Read as a moderate oven, somewhere in the region of 350-375F (175-190C). Fruit breads with sugar and raisins brown faster than plain white loaves; a hotter oven scorches the raisins at the crust before the crumb sets. Expect roughly 30-40 minutes for large loaves, until the internal temperature reaches about 200F (93C).
- Pint and quart measuresPint measures -- 1 pint of liquid is 2 cups. 3 pints of flour is 6 cups by volume, roughly 1 lb 9 oz to 1 lb 14 oz (about 720-850 g) of all-purpose flour depending on how it is scooped; you may need to hold back a half cup or add a little.
- Compressed yeastOne cake was about 0.6 oz fresh yeast. Substitute one packet (2¼ teaspoons) of active dry or instant yeast. Fresh yeast was dissolved in the liquid, as directed; instant can simply go in with the flour.
- Lard2 tablespoons of lard gives a soft crumb and keeps the loaf from drying. Butter or shortening works in the same quantity; the flavor difference is small in a fruit loaf.
- "Rise until very light" and "nearly light"The first rise goes until the dough is roughly doubled and a poked finger leaves a dent that fills back slowly. The second, shorter rise stops just short of that. Judge by the dough, not the clock — at 82°F this moves faster than most modern schedules assume.
- Handling the raisinsTossing the fruit with the flour before mixing, as instructed, keeps it from clumping. Raisins added to a fully developed dough tear the gluten; if you would rather not mix them from the start, laminate them in during the knead-down.
- YieldTwo large or three small loaves, as stated — figure two 9x5-inch pans or three 8x4-inch pans. Slices well the day it is baked; on the second day it is better toasted.
Gold Medal's cook books were promotional literature from the Washburn-Crosby milling company of Minneapolis, later part of General Mills, and they were written to demonstrate that one bag of flour could handle every kind of household baking. The bread section reads like a miller's argument: a single base dough of water or milk, salt, sugar, fat, yeast and flour, then variations rung on it — this one simply adds fruit, with currants or nuts offered as substitutions in the same breath. Raisin bread of this kind sat between plain loaf bread and cake in the American household repertoire, sweet enough for breakfast or tea but built on the bread dough and baked in bread pans.