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ESCANABA -- Some people feel the need to knead.
Some hands make magic when they meet yeast and flour.
Bread making in an old fashioned art.
When winter is raging on the outside, there's nothing nicer than bread baking on the inside. The musky scent of yeast dissolving in warm water and the wonderful aroma of bread baking in the oven, are heavenly on a cold January day.
Making homemade bread, buns, and cinnamon rolls is something that takes the better part of the day to complete.
But, it is time well spent.
In the olden days, women usually had one day of the week for baking bread. At the crack of dawn great-grandma was scalding milk, measuring flour and greasing loaf pans.
She probably had on her favorite apron. A huge old earthenware bowl, wooden spoon and a whisk were the tools of the day. The table turned white with flour.
Anger, frustrations and stress were taken out on the sticky mass of dough. Finally, after much pounding, stretching and kneading and just the right amount of flour, the dough formed a neat smooth ball.
It was covered with a flour-sack towel and left on the back of the wood stove. After the heat and the yeast doubled the size of the dough, it was time to punch it down.
A youngster with clean hands was often used to do this fun part. Great-grandma's hands then quickly shaped the dough into loaves or buns.
Once again, the dough was left to rise while other household jobs were tended to. When the oven reached the right temperature and the loaves were plenty plump, they were baked. Half way through the cooking time they were rotated in the oven.
At last, golden-brown bread and buns filled the cooling racks on the cupboard. My mother always rubbed butter on the warm bread tops fresh from the oven. The smell was awesome. Then us kids would fight over who got to cut and eat the crust end (heel) of the bread.
My aunt Nancy Hendrickson was one of the best bakers of homemade Swedish rye bread in all of north Escanaba. She cooked at the Highland Golf Club for many years and her magical touch with yeast doughs is still talked about today.
It seems that some people are gifted with the talent for yeast breads and others are gifted with the ability to make great, flaky pie crusts. My mother pie crusts were perfection. My aunt Nancy breads and caramel buns were her masterpieces.
I inherited the yeast dough gene however. My pie crust is OK, but my homemade oatmeal bread is often fought over.
My kids have tried their hands at baking too over the years. My daughter used to like to help me shape dinner rolls. But my son has the gift of yeast dough and the need to knead.
For him it started when he was in high school. His French class teacher (a required course) informed me that Bob's grade was not too good. Maybe he could do some extra credit like... make French bread for the class. So he found a recipe and baked many lovely loaves of French bread for the class to share. His D turned into a B.
Pre-heat your oven and get down the flour and yeast. Have a delicious weekend.
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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.