Winter Bread Baking

After World War II was over, and sugar could once again be freely purchased as rationing had ceased, mother would often bake all sorts of good things.  If she had any faults I do not know what they might have been, but at any rate being a poor baker would absolutely not have been one of them.  My mama could bake bread that would make your mouth water just to think about being in the same house with it at baking time, or for that matter even on the porch, or near it.  Is there any smell that is more breath-taking than that of the odor of bread baking in a wood-burning range on a cold winter day?

Mama would mix all the ingredients in a round pan about six or seven inches deep and about sixteen inches across.  Next she would knead it with her fists until it was properly ready to set.  Then I can remember it setting on a shelf near the wood-burning parlor stove to make it rise.  After kneading it once again it had to rise again.

All of this time I would sit reading a book in an old platform rocking chair pulled up as close to the living room stove as I could get.  I loved the steady radiant heat emanating from the big Kalamazoo wood burner almost as much as I did getting lost in the pages of a book.  Do you recall “The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island” or maybe “Misty of Chincoteague?”  This also placed me close to the yeasty odor of the rising bread.  Once in a while I would have to steal a glance at it to make sure it seemed to be rising properly, not that I really knew anything at all about it.

Finally, when it had bulged well over the top of the pan, mama would judge that the bread was ready to make into loaves.  She would carry the pan to the kitchen where she would slice off the right sized slabs, form them into proper shape, put them in her metal pans and place them in the oven.  Oh the heavenly odors that permeated our home while that bread was baking.  If we children were lucky enough, she might take one loaf, hot out of the oven, rubbed with butter on the top, slice it and allow us a mid-afternoon feast.  Soaked with fresh home-made butter from our own milk, it would make your mouth water long before biting into it.  Never after is bread as good as when it first comes out of the oven.

It may be far easier to go to the supermarket and buy any of several kinds of offerings, but none will ever be as good as what mama used to turn out from her old wood-burning kitchen range.