In My Mother's Kitchen: Casserole Batter Rye Bread
My mother made bread most Fridays for the Sabbath, but it wasn't always Challah. My recollection is that she cycled through a few different recipes, although to be perfectly honest I no longer recall most of them with any clarity besides the challah and the Casserole Batter Rye Bread. I'm not sure what it says about my mother's faith in my ability to bake bread, but she included the recipe for the Casserole Batter Rye Bread in the cookbook she assembled for me but not the challah recipe. Perhaps not surprisingly Casserole Batter Rye Bread became my primary bread recipe. In fact, for most of my adult life it was the only bread that I'd really made besides some pans of corn bread or bread-adjacent items like blueberry muffins. Other than pizza dough it was the only thing I'd made that required a yeast rise.
Fortunately for my baking skills, the great 2017 bread resolution helped break that logjam, (although the Casserole Batter Rye Bread was still the first one I made there) and I've continued on sporadically with yeast rises ever since. Like many people stuck at home this year during the pandemic, I did a bit of baking in the spring before things got too hot, including five different recipes with rises, all from the Bread Bible my sister got me to facilitate that bread resolution.
- Olive Bread
- Pullman Loaf Pan Bread
- Banana Feather Loaf
- Ricotta Loaf
- Sweet Potato Loaf
Now that things are cooling off again I expect to get back to it, with one cued up for this coming week. Five different brad recipes may well be more than my mother rotated through, although I've not made any of them a second time yet so "rotated" is a bit strong of a phrase for it right now.
On a side note, for some reason it has proven challenging to find rye flour in stores in recent years. I used to just grab a bag at any grocery store. The last time I went shopping I ended up having to go to a specialty store after trying several different grocery stores. That is still confusing to me. I don't know if there's some sudden uptick in rye usage, or a complete collapse in demand that accordingly restricted demand.
On another side note, I have definitely not done any resolution before or since that got so much attention as the 2017 bread resolution. People were really impressed by that for some reason.
In any event, as a kid this bread was pretty much just for smearing butter on. It didn't make a great sandwich bread due to the shape, and unlike challah it doesn't make a good French Toast Bread due to the rye flour. That's ok, because whether warm out of the oven or warm out of the toaster, it's still delicious to me.
Fortunately for my baking skills, the great 2017 bread resolution helped break that logjam, (although the Casserole Batter Rye Bread was still the first one I made there) and I've continued on sporadically with yeast rises ever since. Like many people stuck at home this year during the pandemic, I did a bit of baking in the spring before things got too hot, including five different recipes with rises, all from the Bread Bible my sister got me to facilitate that bread resolution.
- Olive Bread
- Pullman Loaf Pan Bread
- Banana Feather Loaf
- Ricotta Loaf
- Sweet Potato Loaf
Now that things are cooling off again I expect to get back to it, with one cued up for this coming week. Five different brad recipes may well be more than my mother rotated through, although I've not made any of them a second time yet so "rotated" is a bit strong of a phrase for it right now.
On a side note, for some reason it has proven challenging to find rye flour in stores in recent years. I used to just grab a bag at any grocery store. The last time I went shopping I ended up having to go to a specialty store after trying several different grocery stores. That is still confusing to me. I don't know if there's some sudden uptick in rye usage, or a complete collapse in demand that accordingly restricted demand.
On another side note, I have definitely not done any resolution before or since that got so much attention as the 2017 bread resolution. People were really impressed by that for some reason.
In any event, as a kid this bread was pretty much just for smearing butter on. It didn't make a great sandwich bread due to the shape, and unlike challah it doesn't make a good French Toast Bread due to the rye flour. That's ok, because whether warm out of the oven or warm out of the toaster, it's still delicious to me.