(Grandmother’s Recipes from Friends of the Old School. This one is from Helen Vater Blaha.)

As I make bread, in my mind I see my mom standing over the kitchen stool with her giant bread bowl. As she mixed and kneaded, she rubbed dough off the sides of the bowl with the side of her forefinger, and I find myself using the same motion. My mom made nearly all the bread our family of 10 ate, so she was making large batches often!

I don’t have a recipe from my grandma, nor from my mom. I think, they, like me, did not use a recipe for making bread. My mom knew how much salt she needed, according to the amount of liquid she used.

For two loaves, I start with 2¼ cups of warm milk, potato water, or water. I add about 1 tablespoon of dry yeast and about 2 tablespoons of sugar, and enough flour to make an easily stirred sponge. (This time since I was making rye bread, my sponge included one cup of dark rye flour, as well as all-purpose flour.) I put the sponge in a warm location for a half hour to an hour until it’s bubbly. Then I add about 2 tablespoons of caraway, and stir and knead in all-purpose flour until I have a stretchy dough to my liking. My husband then usually does some thorough kneading of the dough, before we let the dough rise until double. I punch it down and let it rise again before forming loaves and putting the dough in pans. I bake it a 375° for about 25 minutes.