NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

November 25, 1998

Prairie Fare: This Bread Could Start Something

I don't remember where we'd been or what night of the week it was, although it was probably a Sunday. And I think it was well into the fall because I remember Mom thought that what we found sitting on our counter was for stuffing our Thanksgiving turkey.

It turned out that what was sitting on our counter—this ovally round, dark brown mystery studded with an assortment of intriguing ingredients—was a loaf of Dilly Bread. An out-of-town relative had made it and dropped it off during a visit to her mother. Of course our house was unlocked. It was a simpler time—the 1960s. Simpler? I guess definitions of this sort depend on whether the one doing the defining is looking backward or forward. But I digress.

A telephone call from our relative the next day cleared up the confusion. And that night, we were eating the bread, slice after slice. Truth is, Dad and I ate the entire loaf, save the piece Mom had. Mom soon acquired the recipe for Dilly Bread, and loaves of it became frequent occupants of our bread drawer, alongside the less complex white and brown breads Mom made. (Do many people have bread drawers anymore?)

Throughout my years at home, Dad and I continued to eat Dilly Bread by the loaf when it was margarine-melting fresh. But Dilly Bread makes great toast too, and I remember well my youthful sandwich combinations, especially my triple-decker: three slices of toasted Dilly Bread, roast beef, onion cheese, horseradish, mayonnaise, lettuce, pickles and slices of garden tomato. Did I mention I'm a sloppy eater?

I also remember another childhood experience involving Dilly Bread. It happened in grade school. Somehow, I got tapped to bring bread for some sort of science project, and Mom decided she'd send along Dilly Bread. Now, I was pretty naive at that age, but I still knew my Dilly Bread, an oddity compared to the perfectly shaped store-bought loaves the others brought, would produce more scorn than compliments from my classmates. And so it did.

I'm no longer naive or as concerned about what others think. And I have to conclude that I'm having the last laugh, at least when it comes to my choice of bread.

Being confidently full of hindsight, I'd recommend that you try making some Dilly Bread. It might be the start of a family tradition.

Dilly Bread
Yield: 15 single-slice servings

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 tablespoons dehydrated onion flakes
2 teaspoons dill seed
¼ cup fat-free cottage cheese
1 package active dry yeast
¼ cup water, 115 F
¾ cup scalded skim milk, cooled to 115 F
3 to 3½ cups all-purpose flour, divided

Procedure:
Mix sugar, shortening, salt, egg, onion flakes, dill seed and cottage cheese with electric mixer until well blended. Stir together yeast, water and milk and add to first mixture. Beat in 2 cups of the flour, ½ cup at a time. Stir in remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead on a floured surface for 10 minutes. Place dough in greased bowl, turn once, cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free location until doubled. Punch down, let rest for 10 minutes and shape into a round loaf. Place in a greased 9-inch pie tin and let rise for 30 to 40 minutes. Bake 45 minutes at 350 F.

What's Your Take on This, Julie?

We in the upper Midwest can burst our buttons when it comes to cereal and grain products—and not because bread makes us fat. Flour and other products made from our grains generally lead the nation in terms of quality.

Despite some bad press, high-carbohydrate foods like bread don't necessarily make us gain weight. Carbohydrates are an excellent energy source; however, gram for gram, complex carbohydrates like the starch in flour contain less than half the calories found in fat. If you slather mayonnaise and butter on your sandwich or heavy cream sauces on your pasta, though, you could add a few pounds to your frame. Remember, it's the total calories that count.

When you're doing home baking, use the right grain for the job to ensure a high-quality product. All-purpose flour, a blend of hard and soft wheats, is the most versatile. It can be used for cookies, yeast and quick breads, pie crusts and other general uses.

Bread flour is higher in protein, specifically gluten, which allows better rising in the baked product. Gluten acts like a web to trap carbon dioxide produced by the yeast action. As its name implies, bread flour is most suited for making yeast bread. If you have a bread machine, you'll probably find that you get a better product if you use bread flour.

Pastry flour, made from soft wheat flour, is often used for pie crusts and biscuits. Whole wheat flour, also known as graham flour, is made from the whole wheat kernel including the germ or embryo and bran. Wheat germ is an excellent source of vitamins and minerals while bran provides ample fiber.

The enrichment added to grain products like bread, flour, cornmeal and pasta includes the B vitamins thiamine, riboflavin and niacin, along with iron. Because of federal rules that took effect this year, folic acid is now included in enriched grain products. Folic acid has been shown to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects such as spina bifida in infants, so it's especially important for pregnant women to consume adequate amounts. Folic acid also is found in foods like broccoli, spinach, kidney beans and oranges.

Adequate folic acid intake also may have positive health implications for your heart. Researchers have found that low folic acid intake is associated with high homocysteine levels in the blood, and high homocysteine levels are linked with heart disease. Someday, knowing your homocysteine level may replace knowing your cholesterol level.

So eat Dilly Bread to your heart's content and don't feel guilty. A slice of Dilly Bread (1/15 of the recipe) contains 130 calories and only 2.4 grams of fat. But if you eat the entire loaf, that's another story.

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Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136 and Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187

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