We think bread can be part of a healthy lifestyle. So why not try this recipe for our popular Grandmother’s Bread as per the Cape Winelands Cuisine cookbook (page 15).

Mrs Huberte Rupert found this easy bread recipe ca. 1960 on a packet of flour she bought from Haldenwang Bakery in Bird Street, Stellenbosch, and it soon became a family favourite. She passed the recipe on to a certain Johanna, the cook at Lanzerac, from where its popularity spread across the country.

This modern version of the recipe uses instant dry yeast instead of the salt-rising yeast used in the original recipe.

Recipe

Makes: 1 large loaf or 6 small individual loaves

Ingredients

1 Tbsp (15 ml) honey

2-3 tsp (10 – 15 ml) vegetable oil

3 cups (750 ml) lukewarm water

5 cups (5 x 250 ml) wholewheat flour

2 tsp (10 ml) salt

1 pct (10 g) instant dry yeast

Sunflower seeds and/or linseed and/or dill (optional)

Extra vegetable oil, for brushing

Method

Add the honey and vegetable oil to the water and stir until the honey dissolves.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, yeast and seeds (keep some seeds to sprinkle on the top). Stir the honeyed water into the flour mixture until it is lump free and forms a stiff dough, similar to the consistency of a fruitcake batter.

Leave the mixture to rest in the mixing bowl for about 1 hour before stirring again, and then turn out the dough into a large greased bread pan or 6 smaller pans.

Preheat the oven to 200 °C (400 °F).

When the dough has risen to double the size, sprinkle with water and then the extra seeds, if using, and bake for 45 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 180 °C (350 °F) and bake for another 30 minutes. (For the smaller loaves, bake at 180 °C (350 °F) for 45 minutes.)

As soon as the bread is removed from the oven, brush with oil, and then place on a wire rack to cool.