In the video I’m sharing today I show you how to make Pap’s recipe for sweet bread. He had fond memories of his mother making it for him when he was a child and I have fond memories of Pap making it for me!
I hope you enjoyed the video! Have you ever had sweet bread?
Today’s giveaway is something I’ve been working on—an ebook filled with ten of my favorite Appalachian recipes.
To be entered in the giveaway leave a comment on this post. *Giveaway ends November 12, 2020.
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If you double your recipe, but only 2cups of flour, and change the order of steps, you have my go to cake recipe, hot milk sponge cake. This is the base for fresh coconut cake and chocolate mousse cake for Christmas, pineapple and fresh peach upside down cake in the summer and un-iced snacking cake for anytime. My family calls them table knives as that’s practically all they are used for at meal times.
I remember going to visit my Mother’s Aunt Hattie and Uncle Jim Eubanks here in Brevard, NC. They didn’t have electricity so Aunt Hattie cooked on a wood stove; she always made sweetbread when we would visit. I always wondered how she made it; I will now try this recipe. Of course they had fresh milk and butter in their spring house. It was such a pleasure to experience what a good and simple life they had.
Tipper:
I love your recipes.
On the sweetbread, you did not mention the oven temperature. When I assume I make a ass out of you and me. I am assuming a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven.
Jumping subjects.
I made your cornbread recipe also. Used our 10 inch cast iron skillet. Followed your instructions.
Added 1 can of drained sweet corn and cup up some jalapeno peppers. Stirred in and poured in the hot skillet. The skillet was smoking when I took it out of the oven from preheat. I have conquered corn bread. I am still working on biscuits though. Used your recipe, but I am still testing amount of butter, lard, moisture of dough, etc., etc.. Biscuits are still considered work in progress.
Jumping subjects… again. I purchased the following book “SMOKEHOUSE HAM, SPOON BREAD AND SCUPPERNONG WINE, The Folklore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking by Joseph E. Dabney. I believe I got the book idea from your website, possibly from your viewer comments. Any way history and recipes, two things I like. Keep up the good work. All of your viewers, bloggers and lurkers enjoy what you do. God Bless.
8:25 pm, sure wish I had a piece of that sweet bread with my cup of hot tea!
Don’t recall the sweet bread but I have many fond memories of coming home to a cold biscuit and poking a hole in it and then filling the hole with pure cane syrup. The things we poor folks did in the 1950s for treats. Sugar and co-co powder mixed together was another after school snack. OH for the good old days. I grew up in a small North Florida Farm area and rode a bus to school up til the 8th grade.
Thanks for your sweet bread recipe. You always take me back in my memories to mammaws kitchen in eastern KY. My mom says they called it a case knife growing up, I just remember papaw eating with only his knife. I was always enthralled by it.
Sounds so good. Reminds me of a cake recipe I used to make when we first got married. And not been able to find it, so glad you posted this. We grew up calling the knife a case knife too.
My family is from the Northern end of the Appalachian chain. My grandfather worked for the Oneida Silverware company. I had always heard of the box that silverware was kept in as a “Silverware chest”. But y’all got my curiosity up, sure enough, silverware chest are also called silverware cases. Perhaps a case knife came out of the silverware case back when homes had huntboards instead of all the kitchen cabinets our “modern” homes have.
Now I know what that was my Mom cooked on occasion. I actually tried it very little, because I loved her apple sauce pies and chocolate pies. I found an old cookbook at a thrift store that had the recipe for applesauce pie, and bought the book for just that recipe. Dad always ate her cake which I am certain was probably the sweet bread you feature.
Thanks, Tipper, for taking me back to wonderful memories of my childhood. My mother made sweet bread for us, too, when we were growing up. Nothing like coming home from school on a cold winter’s day to a warm house and the smell of sweet bread fresh from the oven. That an a big glass of cold milk! What a treat! My cousin said my mother’s house always smelled like vanilla flavoring. What a wonderful memory to have!
Oh Tipper,
What sweet memories your video stirs in my soul, I can remember my Daddy saying, ” Jane, how about knocking
us up a little cake of sweet bread” My mother taught me how to make it, by helping and watching her.
What Precious Memories………….
My father in law will say about young people that “they’re eating their sweet bread now”.
Made me laugh, I knew exactly what he meant when he said it.
Yes, my mama’s generation called a place knife a “case’ knife in Eastern Mississippi! I wonder why? Thanks for giving us Pap’s recipe for Sweet Bread! I remember my mama’s mother making it in a cast iron pan but no one wrote down the proportions of the ingredients! This is the next dessert I am making! Thanks for keeping the past alive!
My mother made something similar – she called it plain cake. Just a little something sweet without getting fancy. Sugar was scarce when she was growing up. Her mother made it as a special treat when they managed to get some sugar.
I made this when it was first posted and it turned out great. My wife had gone to visit her family in SC so I was bacheloring and could cook what I wanted to. I had opened a can of what I thought were black olives for a salad that were cherries so I made up a cherry sauce to go over it. I think it’s time to do it again. I am going to put black walnuts in it this time.
We love the sweet bread. I can bake a pan of it and break a piece off and just eat it like that. Mm,it’s so good. Tipper, I absolutely love and collect cook books. Each one is different but I have always loved them. Thanks Tipper.
I don’t think I’ve had sweet bread but I would love to try it!
My mother made sweet bread but she added chopped black walnuts to the mix and we loved it. When we came home from school we would get a big block of sweet bread and go outside and play till supper time.
Sweet for the soul and mind! Ahhhh, sweet memories!
That was my Dad’s favorite type of cake and he liked it with his home canned purple peaches and a cup of coffee. Never any icing.
I haven’t eaten sweet bread since grandma used to make it. The last time was probably 70 years ago. I may try some this week.
Tipper, I really enjoy your blog. I intend to try this recipe this coming weekend with my grandson. He wants for him and his grandmother to bake cookies when he is with us. This has to do with comment about hearing meat frying. I am going to brag on my wife of 46 years as of last week. We very seldom go out to eat in restaurant and this has nothing to do with the virus. She cooks the old time way from scratch and scratch does not mean pouring it out of box and stirring it up with a fork. Something else I would like to say, like so many others, my parents had to make do with what they had when I was growing up, but mother always managed to cook something special for her children on their birthday.
Sweet bread sure would have been a big treat for me when I was a child but I don’t recall mom ever making it. You know I’m going to try it after seeing your cakes come out of the oven. I own a ton of iron skillets and only one stainless steel. We never call them cast iron, just iron. When I bought a new stove several years ago, the salesman said I shouldn’t buy a smooth top if I use iron cookware. I told him I didn’t know how to use anything else and ended up buying the traditional stove top.
Your cake looks delicious! I grew up calling that a case knife and that is still what I call it. I think my Mother used sugar in her cornbread because that was how my Father liked it. My Aunts’ cornbread was never sweet so I guess that is why I liked my Mother’s the best:}
I remember granny making sweet bread…papaw loved it with his coffee…sometimes she’d put cracked out beechnuts in it..not a lot but enough so you never never knew if you’d find a bit of nut or not.. she also made something she called batter bread or pone bread…it was sweet too and oh so good with jam…lots of folks think of biscuit dough but hers wasn’t …it was much thinner batter and almost baked up like a cake…it would rise up in the middle and crack open to show the oh so white inside…
The old ways and recipes are priceless treasures, I know you know that but I just felt like saying it. Cooking and eating food cooked in a kitchen is becoming a thing of the past. I rarely eat out and not at all since the nasty virus arrived. I just prefer the home cooked flavor and knowing the kitchen my food comes from.
An e-cookbook sounds like an interesting idea!
Most family men have at least one dish they can master, whether it be sweet bread, pancakes, or a pot of chili. My man is good at making reservations, bless his heart.
Thanks so much for the recipe!! Reminded me of how my mom used to say when times were hard growing up, she and her siblings would mix maple syrup with peanutbutter as a sweet treat, prompting me to do the same thing. Excited to share this recipe with my family!!
This is the same recipe mom used for her peach cobbler. After pouring the batter into the pans, she would spread a pint of her canned peaches (drained) on the top then put it in the oven. I like to add cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg to the batter.
i can’t tell you how many sweet breads i’ve made. along with salt rise bread, i have given so many of both of these away that i have created many sweet bread and salt rise addicts. and i’ve successfully turned people on to appalachian food. people that never even knew it existed.
Still frying meat in a pan here too. Simple living is the best. And, yes, I grew up calling it a case knife too.
This is so interesting to me. The only cakes I remember are 13×9 pan cakes. My mom and her mother were great cooks and bakers but nothing fancy. My grandmother made the best homemade bread I have ever tasted. She always held the loaf to her chest and cut the slices for us to have with fresh churned butter. I have no memory of her cutting bread on a cutting board. I was always afraid she would cut herself with the knife. oh, and all the slices were the same thickness.
Hi again Tipper. I just wanted to let you know that in the time it took for me to watch that video and leave a comment, my two boys (Miles – 5 yr and Theo – 2 yr) got into their remaining Halloween candy and demolished it! Oy to the vey. What will I do with them. 🙂
Oh my goodness, we love Pap’s Sweet Bread recipe. It has become a staple in our house. So easy to whip up. Will make it today. Thanks for posting it again. A wonderful fall treat.
My mommy used to make this when I was little and I thought it was the best cake I ever ate!!!! Thanks, Tipper, for the toss in the WAY BACK MACHINE!!! I’m a lookin’ and I’m a liken’!!!! Have a good day. Every recipe of yours I ever tried has turned out very good and tasty!!! THANKYOU for all you do each and every day! You’re a wonderful cheerleader for our culture!!!! God bless you this day!!! P.S. if I go MIA it’s because I’m involved in a cat rescue and a million other things….
Oh my goodness, we love Pap’s Sweet Bread recipe. It has become a staple in our house. So easy to whip up. Will make it today. Thanks for posting it again. A wonderful fall treat.
That sweet bread looks good. I’ll bet that would go great with a cup of coffee. I am going to try and makes this..luckily I have more cast iron pans then I know what to do with.
Appreciate u working so hard to keep the heritage I was born and raised with in Fannin county alive. Thank you and all who help you
I love it! I’m sending your Pap vibes that I fry meat in a pan and do my darndest to cook well for my family. Thank you so much for this Tipper. I love your videos and hearing your voice. [Btw, I can’t get buttermilk at our farmers market, but I can get kefir which in this case is “full fat”. I use that in place of buttermilk in my cornbread and it made it the cornbread even better. I thought you might like to know.] – Oh, and no I had never heard of a case knife.
Dana-thank you for sharing the kefir tip 🙂
Somehow that reminded me of Daddy reminiscing about his mother’s custard pie. Never heard of it anywhere else. Now my curiosity is up.
I want to make Pop’s sweet bread I hadn’t heard of it until you posted it , Mom used to make a bread I really liked but didn’t get her recipe before she passed and i remembered it mostly from back in the 1950’s and 1960’s.