ASK FLUFFIESAREFOOD
Volume 3 Number 3
Happy Friday, Fluffherders! It’s Monday September 6, 2083, the first Monday of September, which used to be Labor Day in pre-fracturing times. Back then, we celebrated Labor Day in September instead of in May as a way of separating ourselves from the Communist nations. After The Fracturing, the Western USA moved it back to May First to celebrate May Day’s roots in American labor history, while the Eastern USA they moved it to May First to align themselves with the Russian holiday calendar. Today the Reunited USA celebrates Labor Day on May 1st and celebrates Memorial Day on the first Monday of September. Of course, the Confederacy abolished Labor Day completely, while Texas moved the holiday back to the last Friday of August and called it Football Day in celebration of their national sport. All six of the major North American powers see pro-labor events on the First of May, although in the Confederacy they are guerilla demonstrations subject to brutal suppression by the authorities.
Today’s question comes from OhLawdHeComin, who asks:
Dear FluffiesAreFood,
I recently took over part of my sister’s meat herd after we discovered that she had been hoarding fluffies and mistreating them badly. Not making this up, she had about sixty of the little bastards in a house barely big enough for two people and six fluffies. The smell was unholy and I’m ready to burn the place down instead of helping her clean it. Anyway, one of the fluffies I took over is a really fat fucker, weighing in at, no kidding, fifty pounds. How this thiing hasn’t died of a heart attack or diabetes yet is beyond me. The vet tells me I should put it on a diet, but I’m thinking of just harvesting it now and making use of all that tallow. I used to love fluffy tallow bread from my great-grandmother’s recipe, and I’m wondering if you had a recipe you could share?
This is a fantastic question, OhLawdHeComin, and I am so glad you asked it!
Fluffy tallow bread has a history that goes as far back as fluffy eating itself. In the dark and lean days right after The Fracturing, bread was hard to come by, and even the components for most American breads - wheat flour and oil or shortening - was in short supply as transportation to and from the Midwest was cut off. Feral fluffies, of course, were in plentiful supply, and so therefore was fluffy fat. Meanwhile folks in the Occupied Zone that would become the Eastern USA started to make do with flour from barley and oats as they waited for the winter wheat harvest the following summer. Thus the traditional Fluffy Tallow Bread is a mix of rye and oat flour with fluffy tallow for shortening.
Here is my favorite recipe, which you can find in my book, The Art of Cooking Fluffies.
FLUFFY TALLOW BREAD
300 mL (1 1/4 cups) water (room temperature)
15 mL (1 tablespoon) active dry yeast
250 mL (1 cup) milk, either cow or fluffy (room temperature)
22.5 mL (1.5 tablespoons) honey or maple syrup
60 mL (4 tablespoons) fluffy tallow
5 mL (1 teaspoon) salt
1.5 L (6 cups) white rye flour - medium rye is more traditional, however white rye produces a better quality bread.
375 mL (1.5 cup) oat flour
Optional: egg white
Mix the water and yeast together in a medium bowl. Add milk, tallow, honey or maple syrup, and salt. Stir to combine. Add 4 cups of rye flour and mix well. Stir in the rest of the rye and oat flour until the mix is sticky but not wet. Place the dough on a floured surface and knead for eight minutes, adding more flour as needed until the dough is soft and smooth to the touch.
Grease a metal/glass/ceramic bowl with tallow. Place the dough in the bowl, and turn it over so that the top of the dough is also greased. Cover with a clean cloth and keep in a warm, draft-free place (inside a cool, unlit oven works) for an hour until the ball of dough doubles in size. Punch down the dough like you’re punching Richard Spencer in the face. Doesn’t that feel good? Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for another eight minutes, until the bubbles are out of the dough.
Divide the dough into two equal pieces and shape into two 20x10 cm loaves. Place into two greased 20x10 cm baking pans. Let sit in a warm, draft-free place for 45 minutes - they should roughly double in size again.
OPTIONAL: brush loaves with egg white for a nice shiny surface after baking.
Slash the tops of the bread with a fluffy knife, to leave four or five scores on top. Bake at 375 F (191 C) for 45 minutes until golden brown. Remove loaves from pan and let cool on a drying rack.
Enjoy!
Ask FluffiesAreFood is a service of the Fluffherders’ Association of America. If you have a question about raising, slaughtering, or eating of fluffies, you may comment here or send FluffiesAreFood a PM via Fluffybooru.