This bread is a rich, golden yellow, with a distinctive, rather bitter, saffron flavor, well-liked by some people; saffron is not unwholesome.

“Speaking of saffron bread,” said John Landis, to his niece, Mary, “I am reminded of the lines I was taught when quite a small boy:” 

    “Wer will gute kuchen haben, der muss sieben sachen haben;
    Eier, butter un schmalz, milch, zucker un mehl;
    Un saffron mach die kuchen gehl.”

“Of course, Mary, you do not understand what that means.  I will translate it for you.  ’Who would have good cakes, he must have seven things—­eggs, butter and lard, milk, sugar and flour, and saffron makes the cakes yellow.’”

RAISED ROLLS

2 quarts of sifted flour. 1 pint of boiled milk (lukewarm). 1 tablespoon sugar. 1/2 cup butter and lard, mixed. 3/4 cake compressed yeast, or 3/4 cup yeast. 1 teaspoon salt.

At 5 o’clock P.M. set sponge with half or three-fourths of the flour and all the other ingredients.

About 9 o’clock in the evening, knead well, adding the balance of the flour.  Cover and let stand in a warm place until morning.  In the morning, roll out about 3/4 of an inch thick, cut into small rolls, place in baking pans far enough apart so they will not touch, and when raised quite light, bake.

Or, take the same ingredients as above (with one exception; take one whole cake of compressed yeast), dissolved in half a cup of luke-warm water, and flour enough to make a thin batter.  Do this at 8.30 in the morning and let rise until 1 o’clock; then knead enough flour in to make a soft dough, as soft as can be handled.  Stand in a warm place until 4.30, roll out quite thin; cut with small, round cake-cutter and fold over like a pocketbook, putting a small piece of butter the size of a pea between the folds; set in a warm place until 5.30, or until very light; then bake a delicate brown in a hot oven.  If made quite small, 70 rolls may be made from this dough.

To cause rolls of any kind to have a rich, brown glaze, when baked, before placing the pan containing them in the oven, brush over the top of each roll the following mixture, composed of—­yolk of 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of milk, and 1 teaspoon of sugar.

“GRANDMOTHER’S” FINE RAISED BISCUITS

1 quart scalded milk (lukewarm). 3/4 cup of butter, or a mixture of butter and lard. 1/2 cup of sugar. 1 teaspoonful of salt. 2 Fleischman’s yeast cakes.  Whites of 2 eggs.  Flour.

Quite early in the morning dissolve the two yeast cakes in a little of the milk; add these, with one-half the quantity of sugar and salt in the recipe, to the remainder of the quart of milk; add also 4 cups of flour to form the yeast foam.  Beat well and stand in a warm place, closely-covered, one hour, until light and foamy.

Beat the sugar remaining and the butter to a cream; add to the yeast foam about 7 to 8 cups of flour, and the stiffly-beaten whites of the two eggs.