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RECIPE 70
Triple-rising Shortening Bread

      GRANNY SAYS: This recipe — this one right here — is absolutely the best bread recipe anywhere! (Immodest, but true.) It has never failed me, and it's easy to make — but you do have to stay home and look after it.
     

• Dissolve crumbled yeast in luke-warm milk and stir in 2 cups of flour.
• Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 30 to 40 minutes.
• Cream together the butter and sugar, then beat in the egg and salt, and stir it all into the milk mixture.
• Mix in 2-1/2 more cups of flour, then knead the sticky dough on a floured board until the dough is soft and elastic, but no longer sticky. (This uses up just about all the remaining flour.)
• Place in a heavily greased bowl, turning the dough over once. (This oils the top and keeps it from getting too dry.)
• Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes to an hour. (No longer than that, or the bread may taste sour.)
• Punch down and form into two round loaves.
• Brush the loaves with oil — or with an egg white stirred into one-eighth cup water, if you want a shiny crust —.
• Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes.

      Granny adds: To turn this into raisin bread, add 1-1/2 cups of raisins to the 4th cup of flour. Coating the raisins with flour or sugar helps keep them from sinking as the bread rises. If you're ambitious, you can add nuts or even jelly beans, but the bread itself is so good, that "extras" only gild the lily.