Basic Sweet Dough

I have made plenty of sweet breads, and I always favored the Hungarian Coffee Cake and Swedish Tea Ring. This sweet dough recipe is my mother’s, and this works out really well because it is an old recipe. I have also used others which were more recent and still turned out well, but this one is the best I have found. Use this recipe for the basis of your sweet breads.

Original recipe makes 4 dozen rolls or 4 fancy breads

Ingredients

1 cup milk
8 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups cold water
2 (0.6 ounce) cakes compressed fresh yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup white sugar
4 tablespoons shortening
2 eggs
2 tablespoons melted shortening

PREP

25 mins
COOK

25 mins
READY IN

2 hrs 50 mins

Directions

Scald milk in a medium saucepan. Add cold water to scalded milk. Remove 1/4 cup liquid; mix yeast into liquid when cooled to lukewarm. To liquid in saucepan, add salt, sugar, shortening, and eggs. Add dissolved yeast to saucepan. Mix well.
Sift and measure the flour into a large bowl. Make a well in the flour, and pour the liquids into the well. Stir with a large wooden spoon until liquid disappears.
With one hand, mix dough in bowl using swinging rotary motion. Gradually form dough into smooth ball, then knead in bowl for 2 minutes. Brush top with melted shortening. Cover, and allow dough to rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.
Punch down dough. Use dough for any sweet bread recipe.