Kender Granny Bread

Join me as I make Kender Granny Bread – From Tika’s Cookbook for the first time! This is a recipe from Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home sourcebook, originally released in 1987. The recipes are compiled by Tika Waylan Majere. You can buy Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309152/Leaves-from-the-Inn-of-the-Last-Home?term=leaves+from+the+inn+of+the+last?affiliate_id=50797

From Tika’s Cookbook

This cake-bread is traditionally baked in a large, fluted pan shaped like the full skirts worn by grannies. (Remarkable how much granny could hide under those skirts…?

3 packages dry yeast
½ cup warm water sweetened with 1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup milk
¾ cup butter
1 cup sugar
9 egg yolks
3 whole eggs
½ cup light cream
½ pound confectioner’s sugar
2 ounces whiskey
½ teaspoon vanilla, 2 cups flour
½ pound white raisins (optional)

Crumbs:

½ cup butter
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar

Dissolve yeast into water by pouring in gently so each new layer becomes wet and sinks. Let sit for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat milk and butter until melted. Transfer to large bowl and beat in sugar. Add egg yolks, then whole eggs a few at a time. Add cream, sugar, whiskey, and vanilla; stir well. Blend in ½ cup flour until smooth, then yeast mixture. Add remaining 1 ½ cups flour and raisins; stir until batter leaves sides of bowl.

Turn batter onto floured surface, but do not scrape batter from sides or wash bowl (both are needed later). Knead dough until smooth, an exhausting step best assigned to strong, active kender grandchildren. Place dough in fresh greased bowl and turn over once. Cover bowl and place in warm, draft-free area until dough is doubled.

Add crumb ingredients to bowl containing remaining dough. Scrape sides of bowl and cut butter and batter into flour and sugar. Let stand at least 15 minuted, then break into crumbs.

When bread dough has doubled, punch down and knead for 5 minutes more. Dividing dough and place in lightly greased pans. Sprinkle top of batter with crumbs, and pat them into the dough slightly. Let dough rise again until doubled.

Bake at 350 degrees; 30 minutes for loaf pans, 45 for “granny skirt” pans. Test for doneness with a toothpick. Makes 4 loaves, or 2 granny skirts.

Transcript

Cold Open

Someone needs to tell me where I messed up, or if it’s the recipe that is broken, because this was my first total failure.

Intro

Today I am making Kender Granny Bread from Tika’s Cookbook in Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home. If you have made this recipe, share your thoughts in the comments below!

Discussion

I came into this recipe with the best of intentions. My wife makes homemade bread regularly, so I thought this would be a slam dunk, if I needed to rely on her expertise. Since the recipe makes four loaves of bread, I was not surprised by the massive amount of ingredients. I collected three packages of dry yeast, one-half a cup of warm water which I sweetened with one teaspoon of sugar, one cup of milk, three-fourths cup of butter, one cup of sugar, nine egg yolks, and three separate whole eggs, this is an incredible amount of eggs. We also have one-half cup light cream, one half pound of confectioners sugar, wheel! Two ounces of whiskey, I chose Wild Turkey 101 because it’s awesome, one-half a teaspoon of vanilla, two cups of flour…yea, TWO. This HAS to be an error, and one half pound white raisins, golden and white are the same. Then for the crumbs on top, we have one-half cup of butter, one cup of lour and one cup of sugar.

I started by dissolving the yeast in the warm water and sugar mixture. It ended up foaming up like crazy after ten minutes. Then I asked my wife to help me separate the nine egg yolks and whites; she made an omelet with the whites and I only ruptured one yolk. Normally I would use our chicken eggs, but with this many, and an untested recipe, I didn’t want to waste ours, not to mention they lay fewer eggs in the fall and winter. So store bought it is! Then I heated the milk and butter together until melted and added the sugar. After mixing, I slowly added the egg yolks and whole eggs, beating them together. I started this all with a wooden spoon, transitioned to a whisk, and finally to an electric mixer. My forearms needed the rest.

Next I added in the cream, sugar, whiskey and vanilla, stirring them all together. Then I added one fourth of the flour mixture and yeast and mixed until it was smooth, then the remaining flour. Again, they only said to use two cups of flour. Normally a bread recipe asks for five to six cups of flour for a two loaf mix. So these two cups are a joke. The instructions said to stir until the batter left the sides of the bowl, but it never did! I added another cup of flour, to no avail. At my wits end, my wife suggested I keep adding flour. After six total cups of flour, it still was too wet, so I did my best to begin kneading it, knowing some dough is just wet initially.

This did not resolve the issue. My wife helped me by sprinkling more color, but it was a gloopy, sticky mess that NEVER became dough. Finally after exhaustion and frustration had turned to resignation of failure, I put it in a greased up bowl and turned it over once, allowing it to rise. Then I turned my attention to the crumb topping. I added the butter, cutting it up to the previous mixing bowl as directed. Then I added the flour and sugar, scraping the sides of the bowl, and breaking it all up into a sugary crumbly mess. I set it aside and after over two hours the dough still had not risen in a warm, but not hot oven. So I took it out, and split it into four different loaves. The recipe said to punch the risen bread down and knead for another five minutes, but without it rising, it was not able to be kneaded. This first proving, proved to be my downfall.

After putting the dough into the greased bread pans, I added the topping and pressed lightly onto the dough, and let it try to rise. It did rise a bit, but not enough so I admitted defeat and then put them in the oven at three hundred and fifty degrees for 30-ish minutes. Mine took about fifty minutes. When they came out they didn’t look terrible, as they had risen double in size, which was what they were supposed to do, but they still lacked height from the first proving.

The bread itself is good, but sweet as all get out. I now have four dense, sweet loaves for the holiday to enjoy? I will never make this recipe again and if you can tell me if the two cups of flour is wrong, what should I have added instead?