Two Tone Bread

This swirl bread is also from the Better Homes And Gardens Homemade Bread Book, 1973 and uses that same odd method of un-dissolved yeast in a mixer with warm milk, and flour. What those three minutes with a small bit of flour is supposed to achieve I don't know. Personally, I don't think it does anything except perhaps make it a bit easier to knead. I should try it side by side with a straightforward method some day.

The breads are lovely, albeit uninteresting. I used skim milk (reconstituted from powdered) without any problems. I substituted ½ cup of the three cup total with heavy cream to sort of make up the fat content somewhat. That seemed to work fine. I also substituted bread flour for the all-purpose.

The swirls are attractive and I know Danny is going to love them (at least, I hope he does because I have two rather large loaves now). The recipe is pretty simple for what I consider to be a somewhat fussy type of bread. It does help to understand you will never be able to roll out the rectangles of dough to the exact dimensions-so just do the closest you can and then sort of stretch them to the same size once the top layer is on. That's cheating, for those of you who were wondering. Go ahead, it beats taking a ruler to your dough.

I baked these 35 minutes to an internal temperature of 190 degrees F.

You Will Need:

5-6 cups all purpose or bread flour (I used bread)

4-½ teaspoons active dry yeast

3 cups milk

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup shortening (I used butter)

1-tablespoon salt (I used about ¼ teaspoon more)

3 tablespoons dark molasses (I used full flavour)

2 ¼ (I needed 3) cups whole-wheat flour

Optional glaze-1 egg yolk beaten with 2 tablespoons heavy cream

In a large mixer bowl, combine three cups of the all-purpose flour with the yeast.

In a saucepan, combine the milk, sugar, salt and shortening. Heat slowly just until the shortening melts and cool to lukewarm.

Add liquid to dry mixture in bowl. Beat ½ minute at low speed scraping sides constantly. Beat three minutes at high speed. Divide batter in two (easiest to measure in a large measuring cup if you have one, otherwise count ladles). In one half, add enough of the all purpose flour until you have a dough that can be kneaded without being sticky. Knead well until elastic.

In other bowl, add the whole-wheat flour and molasses and knead until smooth and elastic.

Butter two bowls and place each in one. Turn once to coat, and cover. Let rise 1 hour to 1 ½.

Punch doughs down and let rest, covered for ten minutes.

Grease two loaf pans generously with butter.

Divide each dough in half. Roll out the white dough into a rectangle that is roughly 12x8. Do the same with the wheat. Place wheat atop white and roll tightly from short end. Pinch seam closed and place in pan. Do this with other loaf. Cover with a towel and let rise another 30-40 minutes or until almost doubled.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

If desired, brush loaves with glaze. Bake about 30 minutes or until loaves sound hollow when rapped with knuckles or internal temperature reads around 190 degrees F.

Cool on racks.