German Huetzel Brot (dried pear bread)

http://www.chefkoch.de/rs/s0/hutzelbrot/Rezepte.html

(note spelling   Hutzelbrot  )  

Did you want all the other fruits (dried plums, raisins, figs, & nuts) in there too?

If you want only pears in the bread, try cooking first and running thru a meat grinder, then blend into the dough.

Mini

I make this bread every year and have done so for 30 years.  I have perfected it and also candy my own fresh citron to put into it.  It is the most magnificent bread in the world and people truly look forward to getting it every year if I make enough to give for gifts.  I usually make about 25 loaves at a time (29 - 34 lb flour), so it is quite a chore.  Now that I am older, I do that when I have a young strong nephew to do the kneading.  Otherwise, just this year, I started making about 7 loaves at a time, using two large crocks, and about 15 lb of flour. 

The story of how my mom got the recipe:  Marjorie Shafer was a scrounger.  She went into old farm houses before they were to be torn down and nosed around.  She found a "recipe" (not much of one) behind an old cook stove (like the kind you put wood in).  The recipe had no amounts to it.  She just experimented with the fruit and liquids and then added the amount of flour to make it shape up into dough.  When she made it the first time, she knew it would make a lot so she and her friend Marje Motley put their pans together to have enough to put the dough in - there was every size pan you can imagine.  Every year after that, they got together and made the bread.  Nowdays, cookware is not that expensive and we just bought the loaf pans right away.  My sweet mother was frugal because she had to be.  Both Marjories are gone now, but this incredible bread ties us to our mom.  I did not know until 20 years after making it that it was a real thing, the Christmas bread of Germany. 

Cook fruit the night before: Cover the fruit with water in a big pot and simmer it for one hours.  Let fruit sit outside of the refrigerate overrnight.

 Dried Fruit:

• 2 lbs prunes
• 2 lbs raisins
• 2 lbs apricots
• 1 lb currant
• 2 lb citron

 You will need 20 – 40 pounds of flour!  Be ready. 

 Next day:    

Warm up the fruit mixture to just warm (NOT hot or it will kill the yeast) and then strain it to remove the juice – save the juice!!! 

Dissolve 30 - 50 packages of yeast in 6 cups of warm water. (Actually, just buy those jars of yeast instead of opening all of these packets.  I buy two jars of dry yeast.) 

 Then, add to the yeast in a huge crock to:

• the 6 cups of warm fruit juice (or however much you use – if you have more than 6 cups, you just need more flour.   If there isn’t enough juice, add water to make it six cups.)
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 Tbsp butter

             Add enough flour in the crock (about 10 pounds) with the above ingredients to form a soft dough.  You’ll need a huge crock – I use a 20 gallon crock.  But, those might be hard to find.  If you are making this big batch, you can buy a big plastic tub at the hardware store.  Christine and I used to make it in that.  

Kneed stiff and let raise.  (second raising)

After it has raised, - Mix in:

 fruit (fruit should be warm, which it will after you warm it up the next morning in the juice.)

• 1 pound butter
• 1 pint molasses
• 1 pound brown sugar
• 4 pints pecans
• 6 tbsp cinnamon
• 6 tbsp nutmeg
• 6 tbsp cloves
• 2 tbsp salt

 Kneed stiff and let raise again.  (Depending on how much juice and fluid added earlier, you will have to add between 10 – 25 pounds of flour here.  If you need more flour, add flour.  The hardest thing to do is to keep kneading it until it makes a nice stiff dough that does not stick to your hands anymore.  Your hands will start off and stay sticky with the bread mix until it takes shape with the right amout of flour).

Shape into loaves and let raise again (the third raising).  You may have to borrow a neighbors ovens if you want to cook it all at once.  But if you have a double oven, you should be able to do it in a long morning.

 Bake 350 degrees for about 1½ hours, depending on how big your loaves are.  

After the loaves are taken out of the oven, take a stick of slightly softened butter in your hands and rub it all over the top of the loaf, allowing the butter to melt and coat the top of the loaf of bread.  I go through a lot of butter (several sticks) during the process on the 20+ loaves of bread.  They are hot.      

You can cut this recipe in half or in thirds.   

The citron:  I think the citron one of the key ingredients.  As I mentioned, you can candy your own, and if you do, do it ahead of soaking the fruit, saving the liquid it was candied in and then just adding the other fruit along with more water to soak it.  It is sublime to keep all of that citron essence in the bread.