Russian Bread
4½ cups Gold Medal Flour 1 cake compressed yeast 1¼ cups scalded milk 1/4 cup sugar 1½ cups raisins 2 eggs 1/4 cup butter 1 teaspoon salt Cinnamon to taste Dissolve yeast in scalded milk, cooled to 80 degree C, add 1 1/2 cups Gold Medal flour and mix until smooth; let stand until light and puffy. Add eggs, sugar, butter, raisins, salt, remainder of Gold Medal flour and cinnamon. Mix to a stiff dough and knead thoroughly. Let stand until double in volume. Divide into two equal parts for two loaves; cut each loaf into three equal parts; roll the parts into strips about 12 inches long and tapering to a point at each end; press ends together and braid. Place on buttered baking sheet, cover and allow to stand until light. Bake from one-half to three quarters of an hour. When cool, ice with an icing made by mixing a few drops of hot water with powdered sugar, flavoring with vanilla.
A sweet braided yeast loaf of the kind Gold Medal's booklets ran under vaguely continental names. The original assumes a great deal of the baker, including an oven temperature it never states.
- The "80 degree C" is a misprintMilk at 80°C (176°F) will kill the yeast outright. The intended figure is 80°F, meaning scalded milk cooled to just barely warm on the wrist. Take this as the hinge of the recipe: if the sponge never rises, the milk was too hot.
- Compressed yeastOne cake is usually reckoned at about 0.6 oz of fresh yeast, though cake sizes varied over the period. Substitute one packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) of active dry or instant yeast. Fresh yeast is still sold in some markets in 2 oz blocks; use roughly a third of one.
- Oven temperatureNone is given, which was normal when readers judged by hand. A moderate oven, around 350°F, suits an enriched braid of this size. The half to three-quarters of an hour quoted is generous for two loaves of this weight; start checking at 25 to 30 minutes and pull them at an internal temperature of around 190°F.
- The sponge stageMixing yeast, milk and a third of the flour first, then letting it go puffy, is a sponge. Allow 45 minutes to an hour at room temperature. Adding eggs, butter, sugar and fruit only afterwards is deliberate — fat and sugar slow yeast down, and the sponge gives it a head start.
- Butter and eggsHave both at room temperature. A quarter cup of butter is half a stick, 4 tablespoons. Work it in soft rather than melted, or the dough will slacken.
- RaisinsA cup and a half is a heavy load for this quantity of dough. Toss them with a spoonful of the measured flour before adding, and knead them in at the very end so they do not tear the gluten.
- "Until light" on the sheetThis is the final proof, usually 45 minutes to an hour for a braid. Judge it by the dent test rather than the clock: a floured fingertip should leave a mark that fills back slowly.
- Yield and icingTwo braided loaves, each serving eight to ten. The icing is a plain water glaze — about a cup of powdered sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla, and hot water added a few drops at a time until it just pours. Wait until the loaves are fully cool or it will soak in and disappear.
Flour-milling companies published cookbooks as advertising, and the Gold Medal books were widely circulated examples; every ingredient list names the brand, sometimes twice in a sentence. "Russian Bread" here is less an authentic import than a period label for a sweet, raisin-studded, braided yeast loaf of broadly Eastern and Central European character — the same family as challah, the Polish and Ukrainian festival breads, and the German Hefezopf. American cookbooks of the early twentieth century attached national names loosely, and a braid plus dried fruit plus cinnamon was enough to earn one. The recipe reflects a kitchen where compressed yeast was bought fresh and used the same day, where milk was routinely scalded, and where a cook was expected to know what her own oven meant by hot.