Granny Lallah's Dutch Fork Mixed Bread Loaves

Lallah Lindler Drafts made this regularly, but no one seems to have her recipe. In the 25th anniversay cookbook of Holy Trinity's 25th Anniversary Cookbook [1989] that she and a brother and others founded in West Columbia, S. C., I found a recipe attributed to Corene Warner Lindler simply named "Mixed Bread" (page 33). On page 34 was a version called "Mix Bread" by Martha Hite who used the old time Southern term for grits, which is "hominy". I also found a version at www.cooks.com (Wingard Grits Mixed Bread). I have combined the thinking in both. I'm not sure whether this can be made in an electric bread maker or not (it could be worth a try!).

Surprise! In an article in the 10 August 2017 issue of Lexington County Chronicle & The Dispatch-News, the local weekly newspaper here in Lexington, S. C., Liesha Wessinger Huffstetler wrote about "Going Deutsch: How to Cook as our Ancestors Did", including a different mixed bread using flour plus sweet potatoes. That made me think that mixed bread...in the broadest sense...is flour plus whatever other starch-rich vegetable the farmers had available. Potatoes cannot grow in any real bushels of volume in rocky, clay soil but do grow in loam or sand lands. You used what you had. The article seems to support my thought as it notes Ezekiel Bread of the ancient Israelites cooked while slaves in Egypt (Ezekiel 4:9). Liesha and I have communicated, and she loves the mixed bread using the ratio of 1 cup of mashed sweet potatoes to 2 cups of organic whole wheat flour. Then, in the 19 October 2017 issue of Lexington County Chronicle & The Dispatch-News, Claudette Holliday reports mixed bread cooked at the recent Kleckley Reunion. She found the recipe in her collection for Saxe Gotha Mixed Bread. In this one, a batch is cooked using: 2 cups lukekwarm warter, plus 1 pkg dry yeast, plus 2 tbsp shortening, plus 2 tbsp sugar, plus 3 tsp salt, plus 2 cups cooked & cooled grits and, 6 cups sifted plain flour.

Ingredients:

 1-2 cups of cooked grits (corn component of "mixed")
 1 pkg (its about 0.75 ounces) Fleischman (or other) baking yeast
 2 tbsp lard (or shortening, butter, or margerine) at room temperature
 1 or 2 tblsp white regular sugar
 2-4 cups lukewarm water
1-2 tsp salt
 4 cups plain (all purpose) flour (wheat component of "mixed")

 

Equipment:

 two bread loaf baking pans
 hand mix with hands and fingers
 
 

Process:

• While lard gets to room-temperature soft,


• disolve the yeast salt and sugar in the lukewarm water.
    
• Then hand mix everything with flour added last to make the dough and knead until stiff; then let it stand until it rises to double its size.
    
• Divide the risen dough into two loaves and place into greased or sprayed loaf pans. Then,
    
• let the loaves rise to fill each loaf pan. Then,
    
• bake at 350-400 degrees F for 40-45 minutes…depending on crust texture you prefer.
    
• Remove loaves onto cooling rack or surface and slice as you prefer, serving hot, warm, or cold. 

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