Mom's Zwiebach Recipe
Dissolve yeast:
1/3 c. warm water
1 t. sugar
2 pkg. yeast
1/4 c. flour
Set aside until foamy.
2 c. milk
1/2 c. butter
1 T. salt
1/4 c. brown sugar
Warm milk and add butter, salt & brown sugar; cool.
Add 2 c. of flour to the milk mixture, then add yeast mixture and beat until smooth. Add enough flour for a smooth dough but not as firm as bread (3-4 cups of flour). Use a total of about 5-6 cups of flour in the entire recipe. (I use the dough hook at this point to knead the flour in.)
(I think it is really important to use King Arthur flour~makes everything turn out better.)
Let rise until doubled in bulk, knead down, let rise again and punch down thoroughly. Let rise again and form into zwiebach (the lower half larger than the upper half). Set the zwiebach far enough apart so they will not touch each other. Let rise until light. Bake in a 425 degree oven till browned about 15 minutes.
This recipe makes 2 dozen zwiebachs~~most of the recipes I have looked at use around 10-12 cups of flour and make 8 dozen.
I remember Mom telling me that when they would get together with their cousins that they would serve zwiebachs in bushel baskets. She also told me that to make really good zwiebachs, you had to make them every Saturday. On the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog, they say that you can't say exactly how much flour to add, because it just doesn't work that way. You have to go by the way the dough feels. If the dough is too soft, the tops don't stay on. The good thing was that meant they were softer and light as marshmallows. Get too much flour in the dough and they are too dry. Mom also believed in getting them good and brown. Wow, I remember her making them and letting me eat as many as I wanted. I got so spoiled that I would only eat them right after she baked them. Wouldn't even touch them on Sundays. Day-old goods by then. She always had some in her purse for Matt, Melanie, Aaron and Annie on Sunday mornings and they would eat them during church. How she loved spoiling all of us with her roast beef dinners and pies and cakes.
Those were the good old days!
