Milk Bread (Stretzel)

This is another type of old- fashioned bread not seen much these days.

4 cups scalded milk
1 1/2 cups oil
3 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup lukewarm water
3-4 tsp yeast
11-12 cups flour

Mix the salt, sugar, yeast and 1/2 of the flour together. Add the wet ingredients and stir well. Add in the remainder of the flour until it is a nice consistency that is not too sticky. Knead it until the bread dough has some elasticity, about 5-10 minutes (you may use a heavy duty mixer with a dough hook). Cover and let rise until double in bulk- about 1 1/2 hours. Punch down and knead lightly for a couple minutes. Form into 3-4 loaves. Place in greased loaf pans (3 larger or 4 medium sized loaf pans). Cover and allow to rise until doubled. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20-35 minutes (or until outside is lightly brown- you can test it with a food thermometer; it should be 200 degrees when finished). Cool in loaf pans on a cooling rack for 10 minutes and then turn out onto racks to cool the rest. May rub butter over top of loaves after removing from the oven.

Variation- may add 1 cup of raisins for each cup of milk used while mixing the dough.

*Recipe adapted from one from Mrs. John J. Becker in the Mennonite Community Cookbook 1978.