The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Government Brown

David Aplin's picture
David Aplin

Government Brown

Hi Fellow Bread Bakers, I recently read an article in Toronto Life magazine (I'm from Toronto, Canada) and it concerned a type of bread that was available in South Africa during the apartheid years. It was called "Government Brown" and the article described it as a kind of whole bread with the addition of nuts and dried fruit- prunes, raisins, figs, apricots, apples, mangos, dates, pineapple, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, etc. It was produced by the government hence its name. The article did have a recipe, I tried making it and it SUCKED. However, I would like to try again and wazza wonderin, hopin' n' prayin' that someone out there might have heard of this bread and provide a recipe with explanation of method to get improved results. A favourite way to eat it "back home" was to scoop out some of the interior and fill it with a curried meat mixture. Best consumed with a bottle of Coca Cola! That would keep you going all day, in more ways than one... So, fellow bread bakers, I wanna see the replies just rolling in. Thank you in advance for responding to this grave matter.

David Aplin

Baba Yaga Bakery

Toronto, Canada

The World, Milky Way

Universe

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

The article is very interesting. Posted below. --Mini Oven

RFMonaco's picture
RFMonaco

Brown bread

Cooking time: 1 hour



Ingredients
500 ml cake flour
500 ml wholewheat flour
500 ml milk
65 ml brown sugar
7 ml bicarbonate of soda
15 ml salt
10 ml lemon juice
poppy and sunflower seeds for sprinkling on top



Method:
Preheat the oven to 190 ºC and butter a large loaf tin or spray with nonstick spray. Mix all the ingredients, except the seeds, and turn into the prepared loaf tin. Sprinkle the seeds on top and bake for about 1 hour or until a testing skewer comes out clean. Makes 1 medium-sized loaf.

David Aplin's picture
David Aplin

Who you calling a fruitcake?

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

you seem offended.  With all those fruits and nuts, the bread you are searching for sounds like a fruit cake.  Please, accept my apologies.  I read the article and found it most interesting and almost haunting.  In the quest for Gov Brown,  Father baked himself into an obsession, which incidently, sounds familiar.  How often do we ourselves start out on a quest, and end up finding something else?    Thank you.   -- Mini Oven

browndog's picture
browndog

Excuse me for butting in, but I'll bet David's funnin' with ya, not offended at all..... read his post, he's clearly got a touch of what I've got, clown-itis...chronic condition...

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Ever since my near death experience with an exploding fruitcake, I take "grave" matters seriously.  You don't know what an exploding cherry can do until you see it stuck to the ceiing of the emergency room!  (and it's still there!)  --Mini Oven

Arloe Carp's picture
Arloe Carp

I grew up on this bread, and was trying to describe it to a colleague recently, which led me to googling it and stumbling across this post.  I don't recall any fruit or nuts in the bread. What I do recall is that it was dense and nutty in flavour. It did not rise like other bread, which gave it a distinctly square shape as it took on the shape of the loaf pan and rose very little. I knew we were poor because we ate government bread - only rich people ate white bread. No food was wasted in our household and stale government bread was soaked in milk and added to minced beef to stretch it, or if we were very lucky it might be turned into bread pudding.  The crusts were tough and hard, but my sister and I were told that eating the crusts would give us strong teeth. The bread was baked at most corner stores from what I presume would have been some sort of premix, so if you timed it right you'd get a loaf still warm from the oven, which we'd race home and eat in thick slices with butter and apricot jam. I imagine the first recipe you tried was probably right - government brown was nothing special as far as bread goes, but it did sustain a whole generation (and I do have very good teeth!).