Dutch Treats. William Woys Weaver

in a Bundt mold. Excellent when served with tea or coffee or with sweet wine.

       Yield: Approximately 20 Servings

       ½ cup (125ml) whole milk

       ¼ ounce (7g) yeast

       6 ounces (185g) unsalted butter

       4 ounces (125g) sugar

       4 large eggs

       6 ¼ cups (815g) bread flour

       2 teaspoons ground coriander

       1½ teaspoons ground cardamom

       Grated zest of 1 lemon

       1 tablespoon anise seeds (or more to taste)

       Topping:

       1 beaten egg white

       1 tablespoon (15g) vanilla sugar

       1 tablespoon sliced almonds or chopped hickory nuts

      Scald the milk and cool to lukewarm. Proof the yeast in it. Cream the butter and sugar and set aside. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until lemon color, then combine with the proofed yeast. Add this to the reserved butter-and-sugar mixture. Sift together the flour and spices, then gradually sift in the flour to form soft dough; use only enough flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to the fingers. Knead 10 minutes, then cover and let the dough rise in a warm place until double in bulk. Knock down and roll out in a rectangle ½ inch (1.25cm) thick. Scatter the anise seed and grated lemon over this, then fold the dough over twice and knead well until pliant. Form into 20 2-ounce (60g) balls and set them in a buttered Schales pan (see glossary, page 163) or in a shallow cake tin of similar proportions to rise in a warm place. Or roll into a wreath or circle and cover. Let the dough recover for 25 minutes. Brush with an egg white beaten until forming stiff peaks and scatter liberally with vanilla sugar and almonds (optional). Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in an oven preheated to 375F (190C). Or bake in a Bundt mold well greased and dusted with bread or cake crumbs for the same period of time. It should tap hollow when done.

Bean Day Bread

       Buhnedaag Brod

      Depending on which farmer you ask, Buhnedaag (Bean Day) is either June 4 or June 5 (St. Boniface Day). This is the critical date on the Pennsylvania Dutch garden calendar by which time most pole beans and lima beans should be in the ground if they are to produce seed for the next season. This is also the date when kitchen gardeners should start planting bush beans in 2-week successions so that there will be a fresh crop right up until frost. With so much hinging on this important date, we would have thought that some entrepreneurial Dutchman would have come up with a Bean Planting Festival, but the truth of the matter is, at that time of year everyone in the Dutch Country is too busy in the garden to bother with such distractions.

      Just the same, Bean Day has its advocates, not to mention its unofficial herb: Buhnegreidel (“bean plant”), otherwise known as summer savory. Eating beans with summer savory is an old-time preventive remedy for gas (you know the kind we mean), so it is not surprising that it also figures in Bean Day Bread. That said, some cooks prefer to add sage (or a combination of sage and savory), while others add calendula petals for good luck, calendulas being the Dutch national flower. No one knows exactly when Bean Day was first observed, although we suspect it existed in many tentative and perhaps purely pragmatic forms until the 1840s, when Pennsylvania Dutch soldiers brought back black beans from the Mexican War.

Mexican Black Turtle Beans were suddenly touted as the next best thing to turtle soup (only if you add enough Madeira!), and while black beans were not exactly a Pennsylvania Dutch ideal – they preferred white, brown or speckled varieties, since bread made with black beans looks like rye bread – thus a good idea was born. I have taken it a little further by adding garlic and sunflower seeds. I have baked the loaf shown in the picture in a traditional square bride cake tin. More on bride cake tins on page 18. Otherwise, this recipe will make two loaves when baked in bread pans.

       Yield: 2 loaves

       1⅓ cups (8 ounces/250g) black beans

       1½ tablespoons grated unsweetened baking chocolate

       1 cup (250ml) strong black coffee

       ½ ounce (15g) dry active yeast

       1 cup (250ml) lukewarm milk or potato water

       2 tablespoons (30ml) walnut oil or vegetable oil

       5 cups (625g) bread flour (more or less)

       1½ teaspoons minced garlic

       1½ tablespoons salt

       4 tablespoons (50g) toasted sunflower seeds

       2 tablespoons (5g) fresh summer savory leaves, or 1½ tablespoons dry thyme leaves

      Cook the beans in 1½ cups (375ml) water until tender. Then puree the beans with the cooking liquid. Put this in a deep work bowl. Grate the chocolate, then dissolve it in the hot coffee. Add this to the bean puree. Proof the yeast in lukewarm milk or potato water. Once the yeast is actively foaming, add it to the bean mixture. Whisk to create a smooth batter, add the oil, then sift in 3 cups (375g) of flour. Cover with a damp cloth and let the sponge rise until double in bulk.

      Once risen and developing bubbles on top, stir down and add the garlic, salt, sunflower seeds, savory and about 2 cups (250g) of flour – only enough so that when kneaded, the dough no longer adheres to the hands. It is important to keep the dough as soft and pliant as possible. Knead for about 5 minutes, dusting the hands with flour, then cover and let the dough rise again until about double in bulk.

      Knock down, form into loaves and lay them in greased bread pans measuring 4 by 11 inches (10 by 28 cm). Cover again. Once the dough has recovered and risen to within 1 inch (2.5cm) of the top of the loaf pans, set the bread in the middle of the oven, preheated to 450F (230C) Bake 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 400F (200C). Bake another 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350F (180C) and continue to bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the bread taps done. Brush with ice water as soon as the bread comes from the oven. Cool on racks.

Butter Semmels

       Budder Semmle

      There is no precise English word for Semmel. The German word derives from Latin similia which originally meant the finest grade of wheat flour. Today Semmel applies mostly to fine dinner rolls or to dainty breads made from the best sort of wheat. Those rolls are the equivalent to what the medieval English called manchets; the inner crumbs of these rolls are still prized as something superior to common bread crumbs. The crumbs are even sold commercially in Germany under the name Semmelmehl. However, dinner rolls in Pennsylvania Dutch are called Weck, so there is no ambiguity as to what is meant by Butter Semmels: they are miniature envelopes designed to hold a host