Converting Handmade Recipes

Most old fashioned handmade recipes makes two 1-1/2 pound loaves of bread. So to convert the recipe to working a bread machine you simply need to cut the recipe in half. Besides that the only other adjustment you need to make is with the yeast. I recommend that you use the amount of yeast you use for all of your bread machine breads. For me that would be 2-1/2 teaspoons or 1 packet of yeast. For other people it can be more or less depending on where you live. If you are sure start with 2 teaspoons of yeast and adjust up or down from there.

Recipes That Scald the Milk

Many old time recipes call for heating the milk with the fat to a gentle boil. This is called scalding and was done for two reasons. First many times people were using raw milk right from the cow and this scalding was a way to pasteurize the milk and make sure that any bacteria, etc. was dead. Second, it deactivates an enzyme in the milk that interferes with the yeast.

Today, all of our milk is pre-pasteurized and so that isn’t a concern. The enzyme however is still present in our milk today however, I don’t find it cause a big enough problem for me to go to the trouble to scald my milk and then wait for it cool enough so I can use it.

If you wish to scald the milk, feel free to do so. Simply heat to the point you see bubbles forming around the edge then turn it off and allow the milk to come to room temperature. If your recipe called for melting the butter, lard or shortening in with the milk you can do that during this scalding process.

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