At some point, our family’s collection of Old Country items may lose their identity as links to our past.

As a girl, I dusted these family heirlooms, which include a hand-carved wooden whale oil lamp from the 1700s and a hand-carved wooden lunch pail painted blue grey and decorated with a flourish of colorful Scandinavian rosemaling.

My great, great, great paternal grandfather — a carpenter/farmer in rural southern Sweden — made both and wrote “1824” on the lunch pail he took for decades during farming season to the fields. Grandpa Mellskog was born in 1899. As a boy growing up on the same Swedish farm, he remembered the lunch pail because it remained in practical service up until about World War I.

Honestly, though, I cherish the recipes my maternal grandmother — Alida G. Mellskog — learned by heart in Sweden and carried with her at age 22 across the North Atlantic to New York Harbor in 1920.

Unlike the physical treasures from the Old Country, which continue to age and risk lost identity or damage, family recipes live on — fresh out of the oven!

My mom appreciates this kind of connection. So, thankfully, during one summer afternoon in the mid 1970s, she pulled up a chair by the kitchen counter to watch Grandma Mellskog — we kids called her “Nany” — braiding dough, her hands dusty with flour and moving in unbroken rhythm.

Mom took recipe notes in pencil on the light mint green stationery leftover from my paternal grandfather’s business — John W. Mellskog Co., Inc., building contractors in Evanston, Ill.

But when I used a scanned copy of mom’s two-page documentation to make the coffee cakes recently, I figured it was high time to edit the recipe for clarity and move it into a Google document as a safer time capsule.

Now, it is ready for you to try with love from Sweden from our family to yours!

Nany’s coffee cake

Ingredients:

2 packages (4 ½ teaspoons) dry yeast

¼ cup lukewarm water

1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon sugar

2 cups whole or 2 percent milk

¾ cups butter

1 heaping teaspoon of vegetable shortening

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, at room temperature

1 to 2 tablespoons cardamon (optional)

5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour

1 or 2 egg yolks, beaten, and mixed with 1 teaspoon or 2 teaspoons of water

Cinnamon and Swedish pearl sugar or table sugar, to taste

Directions:

Mix together the first three ingredients to proof the yeast, which should bubble after about five minutes.

Scald cold milk in a wide, shallow, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Be careful to avoid boiling by stirring frequently. Cut the heat when little bubbles appear around the rim of the saucepan, and the milk’s temperature reaches 180 to 185 degrees F. (Note: Scalding is a critical step to deactivate proteins in milk whey that can keep gluten from forming properly.)

Stir sugar and salt into the warm milk until both dissolve. Then, add the butter and vegetable shortening until both also melt into the milk.

Cool the milk mixture until it becomes lukewarm by placing the saucepan in a pan or sink of cold water.

Pour the milk mixture into a large bowl fitted to a stand mixer with a dough hook. Beat the eggs. Then, combine them with the milk mixture.

Add the yeast mixture to the milk mixture. Stir in the cardamon if you like. Add two cups of flour until incorporated by the mixer (or by hand kneading). Proceed to add the remaining flour — one cup at a time — until the bread dough becomes too thick for the mixer. Put the dough on a floured table, then, and finish kneading by hand until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.

Return the dough to the mixing bowl, and cover with plastic wrap or a light cloth. Let it rise in a warm place for about an hour. In the winter, Nany put it in a cold oven on a rack above a pan of steaming hot water. In the summer, just keep it out of drafts.

After the first rise, use a wooden spatula to press out all the bubbles. Then, repeat the rise procedure above for another hour. If you have the time, let the bread go through three to five rise cycles.

To make four coffee cakes, lightly flour the work space and knead the dough just enough to remove the bubbles one last time.

Grease two cookie sheets.

Separate the dough into four equal chunks. Then, divide each chunk into three equal sections to roll out three, 1-inch diameter strands the length of the cookie sheet.

Pick your braiding method by either braiding from the middle or braiding from the end.

The middle method:

Nany preferred this method to create the most even braids. To do that, arrange one strand to be the center. (It should run parallel to the nearby cookie sheet, which helps as a length guide.)

Line up a straight strand on either side of the original center braid with an inch or two in between. Then, gently move the center of each outside strand to touch the center of the middle strand.

Start braiding by crossing the left strand over the middle strand. Then, cross the right strand over the middle strand. Repeat until you finish fully braiding the first half of the loaf. Pinch the ends together and tuck under. Repeat the process on the other half.

Make the braid links relatively tight and uniform. Then, gently lift the loaf you braided beside the cookie sheet or pan into it for the final rise, covered, for 45 minutes to an hour. The bread is ready to bake when the braid is puffy and full.

The end method:

Spread the first batch of three strands out beside the pan, pinch one end of the three strands together and tuck under. Then, braid by crossing the left strand over the middle strand.

Then, cross the right strand over the middle strand in a relatively tight and uniform braid. Then, pinch the strands at the end of the braid, and tuck under. As above, allow for the final rise.

Meanwhile, whisk egg yolk(s) with water and brush very gently over each braided loaf when it becomes puffy and ready to bake. Next, sprinkle the loaves with cinnamon and sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes or until the braid tops develop a nice crust. Slice and serve with butter.

Yield: 4 coffee cakes

Pam Mellskog can be reached at p.mellskog@gmail.com or 303-746-0942. For more stories and photos, please visit timescall.com/tag/mommy-musings/.