Grandma A’s Ranch Hand Bread by Bellesaz

[BakerAunt]

Grandma A's Ranch Hand Bread
Submitted by bellesaz on September 29, 2010 at 11:27 am

During calving and branding season, my grandmother made up to 20 loaves of this bread a day for 9 kids and 6 ranch hands. She made it all in a wood burning oven. I bet that bread was fantastic!

Yield: 3 loaves
Source: http://loavesandladles.blogspot.com

20 ounces (or 4 cups) All Purpose Flour
1.5 tablespoons instant yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
3-4 tablespoons melted butter, cooled or canola oil
4 cups milk, heated to lukewarm
29 ounces (or 5-6 cups) Bread Flour
1.5 tablespoons salt

Add AP flour, yeast, sugar to a large mixing bowl or to the bowl of your stand mixer. Mix together well. DO NOT ADD SALT just yet - it comes later! Using the paddle attachment of your mixer, mix together milk and melted butter until dough forms a smooth batter, much like a pancake batter. Some lumps are OK.

Next, attach the dough hook and begin adding your bread flour one cup on Speed 2 at a time until each cup is well incorporated. Reserve one cup of the flour and only add it if your dough continues to act too sticky. If it is, add remaining flour a few TBS at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. It should still act sticky on the bottom of your mixer.

Turn your mixer off and let your dough rest for about 15-20 minutes. I like to leave the dough hook in the dough and cover it with a tea towel.

Turn your mixer back on to Speed 2 and SLOWLY sprinkle the salt into the dough. Let your dough hook work the salt into the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Check your dough to see if you have kneaded long enough by conducting a "window pane" test on the dough. The dough can take anywhere from 45 minutes to over an hour to rise.

Now that your dough has doubled in size, lightly flour your counter and dump your dough out. Using your fingertips, gently remove all the air bubbles and mass that has developed as it has been rising. Now, gather your dough into a rough log shape and divide your dough into three equal pieces. This is where a scale comes in quite handy once again!

Prepare 3 bread baking pans (standard size is 8.5 x 4.5) by spraying them generously with Pam or greasing each one very well. Set them aside. Roll each dough into a ball and set aside. Using a rolling pin, gently roll out the dough no wider than the width of your pan, and about 10-12 inches long. Begin rolling up the dough into a tight roll and pinch the seams together at the ends and on the long section of the dough.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Place dough in a well-greased bread pan, seam side down. Repeat with the remaining dough balls and then sprinkle each loaf generously with flour, cover lightly with saran wrap and a light towel. Let your loaves rise in your pans until they dome over the top and are well doubled. This usually takes anywhere from 30 - 60 minutes.

Bake for 35-45 minutes. Bread should register around 205 degrees when done.

comments
Submitted by bellesaz on Wed, 2010-09-29 11:28.
substitute half of the AP and half of the bread flour with whole wheat should you wish to change up the formula.

Submitted by jlmenz on Thu, 2010-09-30 11:01.
Will it turn out different if I use just straight bread flour?

Submitted by scottysmom on Wed, 2011-02-16 17:35.
I made this yesterday. Used all bread flour and the loaves turned out perfect. I will make this recipe again and again.

Submitted by bellesaz on Thu, 2011-03-10 13:37.
Sorry for the late comment.. I actually forgot I posted this here! I'm so glad it worked out for you. Yes, using all bread flour works fine.. we just like the balance of the two textures. If you like a slightly heavier and somewhat denser loaf, then by all means - use bread flour only. Thanks for the comment!

Submitted by judel on Sun, 2010-10-03 20:47.
This looks great. One question though--you call for 4(16 oz) cups milk, but 4 cups is 32 oz. So how much milk should you have? Just for reference, in my usual 9 cup recipe, I would use 3 cups or so of liquid. Thanks in advance!

Submitted by dachshundlady on Wed, 2010-10-06 07:31.
I checked her blog and the milk is listed as 4 cups with no ounces listed. It does look like a keeper, doesn't it? I just wonder if her Grandma used both AP and Bread or if they had different flour back then.

Submitted by bellesaz on Thu, 2011-01-06 13:01.
Sorry, should be 4 cups.. will change.
In Montana, they are known for their wheats and flours. My Grandmother bought local flour from the mills near the "golden triangle". She called it bread flour, but I suspect it was AP flour with a bit higher protein. When I made it with straight AP, it didn't have the same richness and velvety crumb. When I combined both, it kept it light yet silky and robust. I think all Bread flour makes it a heavier loaf, but if you prefer that, there is no reason why you can't do it. I've made it with whole wheat in the past.. it's a bit denser, but still amazing.

Submitted by spots4debi2 on Mon, 2010-10-04 22:22.
This sounds fantastic. You are so blessed to have the recipe from your grandmother. My grandmother was the camp cook for a mining camp in Wyoming in the mid 1920's. Like your grandmother she prepared every meal for over 20 folks including baking fresh bread daily. The only recipe I have from her is for chocolate merangue pie. Writen in her hand, it is a special treasure.

Submitted by PaddyL on Thu, 2010-10-07 16:23.
I doubt they distinguished between flours back then, and when flour was running low, they'd extend it by adding mashed potato. It does look good, though; I can almost smell it.

Submitted by dachshundlady on Sat, 2010-10-09 08:35.
I made 2 loaves of this bread yesterday afternoon to have for breakfast toast. They turned out so lovely that we had slices with butter last night before bed. It is delicious; lovely fine crumb and the kitchen aide made it easy. My only question, and this happens to me with other recipes too: sometimes my top crust ends up slightly dimpled when it cools. I prefer like the photo above "so round, so firm, so fully packed" *LOL* Any hints?

Too much yeast? Letting it rise too much or not enuf before baking?

Submitted by bellesaz on Thu, 2011-01-06 13:07.
dachshundlady.. I've had other breads come out the way you describe. I don't know why that might happen except that your hydration levels could be slightly different. I have made these loaves for years and didn't get good consistency until I bought a scale and started weighing my flour. Did you try that?
The other problem can be is if you let it rise too long. It gets some nice oven spring on these loaves and when they begin to cool, they shrink just a bit.. so an overly risen loaf may have max expansion before going into the oven, a bit more spring once the baking process begins and then upon cooling, it shrinks. You might try baking before it rises too much or too high.

Submitted by jozy on Sat, 2010-10-09 14:44.
Dlady, Did you just 2/3 this bread? Any other changes? I am going to look for your email address for the same questions. Thanks !!
Jozy
Submitted by dachshundlady on Fri, 2011-01-07 07:24.
Bellesaz, you should enter this bread in the "Best of the Midwest" baking contest mentioned on this website.Or even the other baking contest going on here. I love this bread and have shared it over at the old Baking Circle. Now people over there are making and enjoying it. What a nice tribute to your Grandma!

Submitted by bellesaz on Sun, 2011-01-23 23:00.
Hi DL, yes, I visited the Baking Circle, but wasn't allowed to comment for some reason, even though I have my blog on Blogspot. In any event, I just wanted to say that I was glad you were able to share the recipe. My Grandmother would have been so pleased knowing that others were enjoying it.. although she would be stumped as to how we figured out her secrets. LOL, she was very clever leaving out important bits of key information with her recipes. Hehehe.

Submitted by bakeraunt on Sat, 2015-02-07 15:12.
This bread is wonderful--soft with a chewy crust. I used the variation that substitutes in half whole wheat flour, and I added 1/4 C ground flax meal. I also used 1/2 cup + 2 Tbs. special dried milk and 4 cups of water in place of the milk. I used the 4 Tbs. of butter. I did change the mixing instructions a bit, since I use active dry yeast and always proof it. I also have a Cuisinart stand mixer, so I changed the mixing numbers to align with that machine. However, I did follow the instructions to use the paddle attachment with the first group of ingredients before switching to the dough hook. I think it made for a lovely texture in the finished bread. I let that first mixture rest for 15 minutes, then added a mixture of 2 1/2 cups each of the bread flour and whole wheat flour with the salt mixed in. I found that I needed another 1/2 C of whole wheat flour on this day.

This is about the most dough that my 7-qt. Cuisinart can handle.

Submitted by member-his1sparrow on Thu, 2015-02-19 14:19.
To bellesaz and other experts: I made and baked this using 3/4 AP Flour and 1/4 Whole Wheat flour stirred them together before adding rest of ingredients. I had two problems:

1. Flour and dough kept sticking to bottom of my bowl (5.5-6 at KitchenAid mixer) I kept stopping and cleaning down dough in bowl... is it because mixer is to big to keep dough down and mixing in bowl? When I dumped dough onto floured table there were two or three large hard pieces stuck on bottom...I did not scrape down any hard pieces from bottom, but when eating we found a few hard bites.
Did I add my flour to fast or too much at a time.
I'm the only one that break a bowling ball. :/ or a perfect recipe...haha

2. I am so happy I bought a Thermapen thermometer to make sure my meats, breads were done. But I made a mistake when my timer went off at 40 minutes on my bread I stuck my Thermapen into tops of all three loaves... they slumped down some, so don't do this. Grandma said 205...Any ideas on how to take temp without causing slumping down? I know to turn off oven when bread done and let set so no bread shrinking/slumping a couple of minutes then to take out let set a few minutes in pans then to cooling racks so the loaves won't have any imprints and won't shrink down.
I love these groups, you are all so friendly and so helpful. Thank you very much.

Submitted by KitchenBarbaria... on Sun, 2015-03-29 11:30.
Scaled for one loaf:
Choose either:

*..463 g - 16.3 oz - 3 c to 3 1/3 c KAF AP flour
OR
*..189 g - 6.7 oz - 1 1/3 cups All Purpose Flour (other than KAF)
*..274 g - 9.7 oz - 1 2/3 to 2 cups Bread Flour
.
2 to 2.5 tsp instant yeast (note that I always use ADY)
1 T sugar
20g - 4 tsp - melted butter, cooled or canola oil
1 1/3 c milk, heated to lukewarm
0.5 T salt
.
I made this in my Zo Virtuoso on the Regular cycle with light crust. In the first attempt at scaling I used only 1.5 tsp (0.5 T) of yeast. This is low for a single loaf of this type; I suggest using 2 to 2.5 tsp yeast instead when making a single loaf.
.
Also note that the weight vs volume measures given assign a weight of approx 5 oz to one cup of flour, where we usually assume between 4 and 4.5 oz per cup. However the weights as given fall within the normal tweaking range for a bread recipe. Using volume measures is always trickier.
.
This bread makes great toast. My favorite, in fact, as of now, for toast.

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• This topic was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by BakerAunt.

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