The story behind my sweet bread adventure...

Forgive me if this is not the most smooth account, but I wanted to record this before I forget it all!

I never met my great grandmother, Maria Carreiro. Many people don't but for me there is special meaning in that. You see, my mother's and father's parents had known each other socially for years. My mother spent many years hearing about Teddy and my father heard all about my mother. It was at my fatehr's grandmother's funeral in 1969, however, that they finally met at adults.  My father recalls seeing a stunning woman with a black mantilla covering her long, thick black hair. He decided he needed to persue her ... and did so that very night, stopping by her home to thank her parents for their condolences. They were married in 1970 :)

Maria Assumpcao Borges Carreiro (1894-1969) was married to Camillo Carreiro. I believe they were both from Sao Miguel in the Azore islands of Portugal. They went on to have three children, my grandmother Mary Carme, her sister Tillie and their brother Joseph.

My father and my cousins fondly remember Grammy Carreiro's Massa Cevada - it was a special treat only made a few times a year. Traditionally Massa Cevada is made at Easter with a whole egg in the shell baked in it. My mother grew up enjoying Grammy Carreiro's bread as well ... as friends of the family, they were treated to her wonderful baking. It really resonates for me that my family has been making this bread for (most likely) at least a hundred years!

At Thanksgiving my grandmother mused that I might be able to manage this recipe so I decided to attempt it for a Christmas Eve surpise. I contacted my cousin Michele and she kindly sent me what she had.

My great grandmother, like most, never used a recipe or measure out ingredients. Her method of teaching my grandmother and her daughter in-law (Michele's mother, Dot) was to bake with them watching, throwing in a bit of this and that ... and she also didn't speak english well. This recipe was written down on two very old index cards and I give Michele toooons of credit for copying it all over for me :)

My mom, grandmother and Aunt Dot all referred to this recipe as hard to make because it was a particularly sticky dough. Ironically I've spent the last three months learning how to bake with wet, sticky doughs. When I compared her recipe to the ones I have been using, I realized I could apply the same techniques to make this do-able.  For someone unfamiliar with wet-dough baking, I can see how challenging this would be.

My biggest question regarding the accuracy of this recipe is the yeast measurements. They are the ONLY edits I have made to the ingredient list, as most bakers no longer use yeast cakes. One important thing to know is that my method of baking is very forgiving regarding yeast discrepancies, so precision isn't vital.

Here are some cool links I stumbled upon while researching the history of yeast ...
A Short History of Yeast
Food History Resources - this is a wild page, check it out!