SWEET MEMORIES

FAMILY RECIPE

      I have made my own personal cookbook. It´s a kind of scrapbooking with pictures of my family´s favorite recipes, and my first intention on doing it was passing on family traditions and keeping them alive through it. And then, after a time I found out that I could keep it virtually and stopped using so expensive papers because scrapbooking papers are very, very expensive.

  Well, turning back to my book I´ve just found on it what we call in Portuguese “ Sonhos” or  “Dreams” in English. But our “ dreams” are quite different from the ones we can find in São Paulo State open and filled with vanilla cream. Ours are closed and filled with guava jam.  The recipe comes from my hometown in Paraná State.

Donana or Dona Donana, as children used to call her, was the woman who used to sell her dreams on a big straw basket . Ours are closed and filled with guava jam.  The recipe comes from my hometown in Paraná State.

Donana or Dona Donana, as children used to call her, was the woman who used to sell her dreams on a big straw basket covered with the cleanest and whitest dish cloth I have ever seen.

And the recipe goes like this:

Ingredients

45 grams of yeast

1 coffee spoon salt

 3 cups warm milk ( almost cold)

3 tablespoons of sugar

2 tablespoon of butter

3 eggs

750  grams of flour

1. In a small bowl, add the yeast and the salt. Stir until is dissolved. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl,   add the warm milk, the flour, the butter, the slighted beaten eggs and the yeast. Mix it all together and knead the dough  in a clean and dry well-floured surface until it becomes smooth and satiny.( This should take about 10 minutes).  Let it rest for 30 minutes or until it doubles its size.
3. Stretch small amounts of dough into shape leaving a hole in the middle, fill it with guava jam and press it to close it.
4. Heat the vegetable oil and fry them ( not more than 3 or 4 at a time) until you get golden brown color on both sides. Quickly drain to any excess oil and immediately roll them in the white sugar. Serve while warm and enjoy.

The family secret: Add a small smashed potato while kneading the dough.

The role-playing: I´ve asked my husband to make this recipe on Mother´s Day.