When my sisters and I were growing up, we loved going to Ward’s Cafe with our parents to enjoy Mrs. Ward’s delectable dinners and wonderous desserts. Mrs. Ward was well-known in our community for her homemade dinner rolls, breads, tender flaky doughnuts, and her Wednesday night fried chicken dinners. Her grandson, Tim Ward, graciously shared with me his Mamaw’s recipe for homemade bread for my “Missouri to Maui” cookbook and I wanted to share it with you today for it is hard to beat the aroma of fresh bread baking while anticipating then savoring that first bite.
Like many old recipes, Mrs. Ward’s recipe doesn’t specify the amount of flour to use but says only to initially “add flour until a spongy dough forms” and I used just under 2 cups at that step then followed her recipe’s instructions to add “several” cups of flour to the yeast’s “spongy dough” mixture; I used another scant 2 cups of flour. You will have to experiment with the flour amount as you get a feel for adding enough to develop a smooth elastic dough. Today’s total of close to 4 cups produced a dough that was easy to knead and shape into two loaves.
The bread bakes up airy and light with a lightly browned crunchy crust. You will have plenty of “in between time” while the bread rises; three times in all, and today I spent that time cleaning the yard. Wise then, to choose a day for baking this bread when you can keep yourself occupied productively in between trips to the kitchen; the waiting only increases the pleasure of bread baking! This bread today didn’t rise as high as I remember Mrs. Wards’ so I will let it rise even longer in the loaf pans next time, but, it tasted delicious and was totally satisfactory “as is” today. I slathered it with butter after cooling 15 minutes on a wire rack and ate two pieces standing up. =)
Mrs. Wards’s Homemade Bread
Ingredients
1 cup water
1 cup plus 2 tsp. milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 pkgs. rapid-rise yeast
Flour
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp. salt
Directions In saucepan, combine the water, milk and sugar. Heat to warm but not hot. Turn off heat and add the two packages of yeast. Stir to blend and let this sit until it bubbles slightly, about 5 minutes. Stir in enough flour so that the batter forms a spongy dough. Stir with a wire whisk to blend the warm mixture with the flour; cover with a paper towel; allow dough to double in size.
When dough has doubled, sift several cups of flour into a separate large bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour. Add the dough that has doubled in size to the dry flour mixture. Add the oil and salt. Fold into the flour and mix well. Turn out to a floured surface or Silpat baking mat and knead well. Grease a large bowl and place kneaded dough into it and allow to double in size again. When doubled, separate into loaves and place in greased loaf pans and allow to double in size one more time. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes until nicely browned on top.