Sally Lunn bread * yeast * letting bread rise

Sally Lunn Bread

1 ½ c flour

1/3 c sugar

1 envelope rapid rise/quick-rise or instant yeast

½ tsp salt

½ c water

½ c milk

½ c salted butter (one stick), cut into pieces

3 eggs (room temperature)

About 2 ½ c more flour

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour, sugar, yeast, and salt). In a medium bowl, heat water, milk, and butter until butter is melted and mixture is hot but not boiling. Add to dry ingredients. Mix in eggs and enough flour to make a dough about the consistency of biscuit dough.

Cover and set aside ten minutes, then beat well for about a minute. Spoon into a greased tube pan, cover, and let rise another hour, or until doubled in size. Bake at 325 Fahrenheit for 40 minutes.

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make Sally Lunn bread. This is a rich, delicious yeast bread made in a tube pan that doesn’t require kneading, so it’s a good introduction to making bread.

You can’t use any old yeast for this recipe, though. You have to use a type that’s specified quick-rise, rapid-rise, or instant. It should be plainly marked so you don’t have to guess. If it doesn’t say something like quick-rise on the packet in nice big letters, you don’t have the right yeast.

Other than that, the recipe is pretty straightforward. You will need one big mixing bowl and a tube pan or Bundt pan. You’ll also need a small mixing bowl that you can microwave.

First, grease the tube pan and set it aside. Then get out your big mixing bowl and mix the first cup and a half of flour, the yeast, sugar, and salt. Set that aside too. You can use all-purpose or bread flour, or if you have whole wheat flour you can use it for up to half the called-for flour. Of course you could use whole wheat flour for all the flour, but it tends to make a dense, robust loaf and Sally Lunn bread is meant to be light, more like a brioche or tea cake.

Next, cut up a stick of butter and put the pieces in the small mixing bowl. I usually use salted butter for this recipe. Add the water and milk and stick it in the microwave for 30-second bursts until the butter is mostly melted and the liquid is hot. You can do this in a small saucepan on the stove if you don’t have a microwave, but be really really careful that you don’t let the mixture get so hot it starts boiling. You’ll be adding this to the flour mixture and you don’t want to kill off your yeast.

See, yeast is alive. It’s a fungus that’s dormant when dry, but add moisture, heat, and some form of sugar and it becomes active and starts doing its thing. Its thing, in this case, is to consume sugar and release carbon dioxide, which is what makes bread rise. But if it gets too hot, it dies. You don’t want it to die until, you know, later.

So, add the melted butter mixture to the flour mixture and blend it in. This is where you’ll notice the difference between making yeast bread and making quick bread, which is the term for bread made with baking powder or soda. As you mix, you can actually see the dough expanding as the yeast activates. You’ll also notice the pleasant smell of fresh bread and a faint smell sort of like beer, which is actually the smell of the yeast.

You also need to add the eggs and the rest of the flour. This is why you want to use eggs that are room temperature. If you use eggs that are cold from the fridge, you’ll cool the yeast and it’s most active when it’s nice and warm. You can use cold eggs, of course, but if you can remember to take three eggs out of the fridge a few hours before you plan to make bread, even better.

So, add the eggs and mix them in well. Then start adding flour. I’ve tinkered with the amounts and can verify that you should add two and a half cups at this