Our friends had us over to their house yesterday and served one of
their old family recipes called...Stip and Poofa! It was
delicious. It was what I would describe as a thick slice of soft
white bread (the Poofa) with a sweet, white pudding ladled over it.
This is how it's cooked: You make up a large batch of yeast bread
dough, stir and knead it, so it's ready for it's first rise. Place
the already-kneaded dough on the counter, in the center of a very
large dishtowel or piece of cheesecloth. About the same time, fill a
large cooking pot (with a lid) about 1/3 to 1/2 full of water and
start it to boil. Take the bread-in-the-towel that's setting on the
counter, place the pot's lid over the bread and towel and bring the
corners of the towel up over the lid, tying the corners together in
knots. Put this bread-lid back over the boiling water and cook for
about an hour or so until the bread is steamed-cooked. Let it cool.
To make the Stif (sauce): make a large recipe of vanilla
pudding. Her's appeared to be made from milk, eggs, and flour,
cooked until it was thick, but pourable off the spoon.
To serve: slice a piece of the cooked bread about 1" thick and place
it in a bowl. Ladle some pudding over the top and serve. It was
really very delicious...sort of like a bread pudding.
They also told that another variation of this was that their
mother...in the good old days....used to make / steam the bread over
a pot of beans as they cooked them in order to save steps and
energy! Also, they recalled that sometimes the sauce was dark brown
in color, and that most likely their mother had added some molasses
to it. They liked that version, too.
Has anyone every heard of this process or the name for it? The
family claims to have German heritage, but perhaps this is NOT a
"German" recipe. They said they have also heard it called "Johnny in
a Sack", but I had no results on an internet search for that name, either.
Jeanette in South Texas