No kneeding,no arduous proving period,just mix...........
1lb White Bread Flour
1lb Rye Flour
1lb Wholemeal Flour
21grms dried yeast
2 pints warm water
1Tbsp Muscovado Sugar
1Tbsp salt
mix 1/2 pint of warm water with yeast,after 10 mins add sugar and stir.
Combine all the flours and the salt,then add yeast water,then add remaining 1 1/2 pints warm water.
Divide into well greased 1lb loaf tins and cover with cling film for 30 mins.
When Dough has risen to just below loaf tin edge,place in middle of oven for 30 mins@180degrees (fan oven)
(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/skatenchips/GrantLoaves001.jpg)
divide dough mixture into 3 x 1lb loaf tins
(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/skatenchips/GrantLoaves002.jpg)
30 mins proving
(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/skatenchips/GrantLoaves003.jpg)
remove from oven and cool on rack
(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/skatenchips/3loavesbread003.jpg)
(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/skatenchips/GrantLoaves008.jpg)
(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/skatenchips/GrantLoaves005.jpg)
Nice crisp crust,and muscovado sugar gives a rich flavour,dark and moist.
Top lunchtime soup dipping bread.
Enjoy
Gazza
My goodness, this is the loaf that my father used to make, starting (as far as I can remember, being 5 years old) in 1948.
Not the 3 flour one, but the most basic rather wet wholemeal one, and that is what he bought up his 4 children eating.
All his life he made bread for us; faltered slightly towards his old age and death in 2000, when he started to forget the method, and we would anxiously remind and help him......the Grant loaf is one I have deviated from, but that is where we started.
If we had all heard about sour dough bread in those early years, I am convinced he would have taken that up. I certainly have.
I am chuffed that a recipe I stumbled over a while back had fond memories for you, especially as your dear Ol Dad made it for you.
I have Just lost my Lovely Dad at age 87,and he being of East Prussian Stock would always talk of breads as children that would stay fresh for days and had a almost springy cake like consistency and would fill you up after a couple of slices,which is the reason I added the Rye flour and the White to bulk it out and I sometimes add Molasses which gives it a dark colour and depth to the slices almost Pumpernickel like.
My Dad was a cake maker really so Id like to think that both our Dads would be happily baking in Gods kitchen.
Gazza
What a lovely reply, thanks! My father was nearly 83 when he died.
He and my mother spent some time in Pittsburgh, where I visited them as a 21 yr old in the mid 60s, and found that although they had first been stunned and impressed by colorful supermarket displays, they had quickly noted the tastelessness and lack of variety of most fruit and veg. By the time I got there, they had sought out all the middle European immigrants, artisanal bakers, people who had smuggled their own seeds into the USA, and had an active network of brilliant little shops selling Real Food.
Back home in Scotland, they enjoyed getting the flour for the Grant loaf from the local petfood shop. It was the only source of the roughly ground wheat that they preferred. I used to take a hefty sack home with me whenever I visited them.
Our town was full of first generation Polish and Italian immigrants - the Italian general shop unwillingly sold sliced white bread, all you could buy in those days. On the few occasions we ran out of the Grant loaf, my father would send me to this shop to ask for "porqueria" which I did, as a child, not knowing that I was asking for "pigfood". The Italian and my father were in complete agreement about what this sliced white was fit for, and he would reach me down a pack without hesitation.
83,wow,another long lived Father that meant so much to his children is obvious from what you write.
That is what makes this Forum so easy going Artichoke,its ability to share life stories with one another
when a simple food that came from your heritage can be shared with another member.
After all Bread is such a staple in our diets its amazing when my Dad would tell me the story of loaves of Rye Bread and Tilsit cheese thrown to his 8 sisters and parents by the town baker In Tilsit as they fled the Russians at wars end how a simple reminder of their home towns foods would be the last time they as a family would ever get to see their home again before settling in Oberstdorf Southern Germany.
But I digress,the Breads I was introduced to in Germany are "Real " food and come from family traditions
from displaced peoples sitting together in the Town "Oven House" sharing their secrets and boy, "!!!!!!!
did I enjoy the results I was always sent to the Town baker in the mid 60,s as an errand for my Oma(nanna)
and would come home with to die for breakfast rolls and Bread loaves that you could bounce down the street they were so firm.
Anyway,enough O that,im just pleased you could reflect on good times.
Regards
Gazza
Absolutely fascinating! I will indulge myself a little more on this lovely thread: my daughter married a lovely German (northern Germany), very kind and clever man who nevertheless abandoned his training as a cabinet maker and cares for unfortunate people in a transition home, very low paid. People give bread to this home as a charity, and if it is uneaten, he brings it back to the family, and it is absolutely delicious, so I am familiar with the high standard of German bread and the lovely rolls covered in seeds.
"you could bounce down the street they were so firm...." DID you??? Of course, I am her children's Oma. They have recently been to stay, and the sourdough bread that I now make (thank you, Goodlife!) was gobbled up and disappeared like summer snow.
What an extraordinary gesture of the Tilsit baker to throw food to escaping refugees.
My Russian friend here died suddenly - it was a shock to hear her recorded voice on BBC recently, describing her family's escape from Dresden (where they had much earlier taken refuge from Russian revolution) through the firestorm, when she was a small child. What extraordinary stories many people could tell if asked.
I and my 3 sisters make an adapted version of my father's bread, also several students he taught with whom I am still in touch, and both my husbands learned to make it (the first one died, of course). Father's Grant loaf, made with the coarsely ground flour, was of course wonderful, but a bit heavy on the teeth and jaws......so we all add varying amounts of white flour.
yes,I sat transfixed when the Hairy Bikers did Germany recently and will afore long do the Beerocks snack recipe as it sounds a scrummy accompanyment to the odd German Lager that I get from time to time.
Yes,the grand children did their Opa (Granddad) proud last Thursday at my Dads funeral they had the nerve to speak from the church podium and did brilliantly and were very brave 20 somethings to get up there at all,I on the other hand just read from the heart about Dad and from reports it sounded OK !!!!!!!!!
Oh heavens no,If I misbehaved and had mistreated the bread by bouncing it down the village street my Oma would have taken me out in the garden where the Klopfa(Bamboo rug beater) would get to taste by backside.
What a selfless gesture to offer help to the less fortunate,a similar pastime happens in Obertsdorf when the familys use the village communal oven any excess Rolls or Breads is left on a tressle table and anybody can help themselves and ive no doubt any transients would make the most of leftovers,I can imagine me setting up a table down our local highstreet with food on it....the health and safety executive would lock me up tootsweet..!!!!
Yes,Tilsit Cheese is a well known firm cheese that was made by locals and Dutch settlers originally and after the Russians took over the area the Cheese name died overnight although you can still buy it I think these days it is made under license in other parts of Germany.
I know the German Deli in Richmond Surrey that supplies me with pastries and cheeses all say "German made".
Thats great that all your sisters got to make Dads bread albeit variations to suit your palate.
Yes,hundreds of tragic stories will never be told but sometimes its good for the soul to hear about those difficult times as it makes us appreciate our own lives.
My Dads family for instance when they left Tilsit the grand parents were put on a different train that went north to the baltic area and were never seen again.....just like that.
yes, I must have a go at this sourdough milarchy,I feel like im missing out !!!!!!!!! ;)