I am not sure if it is our new frugality or the cold winter winds but recently I have returned to making bread. It is an all together satisfying enterprise. I love the taste and smell of fresh baked bread, but perhaps even more, I love the feel of the dough as I knead it.

In the past I made bread regularly. I loved experimenting with different recipes. I loved packing the loaves with interesting grains, nuts and other tidbits that seemed appropriate in the moment.

I come from a family of excellent bakers. When my mom, Ruth, baked bread it was always soft and light and tasty. My grandma Bee made the very best biscuits. However, it was my Auntie Mabel who was known for her bread and her angel food cakes.

My mom was a sporadic baker. She didn’t bake regularly and she didn’t bake for special occasions; yet I have memories of coming home from school to find freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Sometimes she made tasty loaves of bread or buns. They just seemed to appear from time to time.

Grandma Bee used her biscuits as a mainstay of her diet. I remember eating biscuits and cherries, biscuits and raspberries, biscuits and gravy, biscuits and egg butter (another of Grandma’s specialties). We all thought Grandma’s biscuits were the best. She made them in her flour bin. She simply dumped the wet ingredients into the flour and quickly mixed in flour until it felt just right. She tried to teach me, but my little hands weren’t fast enough to corral the liquid.

My Auntie Mabel made a week’s worth of bread at once. I don’t remember if it was five or six loaves, but on baking day her house would be filled with the aroma of baking bread. If I timed it right I could arrive just in time to sample the hot chewy bread. She would slice off the heal and generously butter it for me. Perfect!

For special occasions she made angel food cakes from scratch. I remember watching her separate the eggs whites from the yolks. It seemed like it took a dozen egg whites for her spectacular cakes. I don’t remember what she did with the yolks, but she was a frugal woman. I am sure they did not go to waste. Our birthday cakes were always Auntie’s angel food. I have never had a taste for any other.

So I return to baking with warm memories of these women humming tunelessly in their kitchens. I noticed the other day that I too was humming as I kneaded the dough for a new country loaf I discovered. It is such a modest endeavor.

I wonder why I stopped making bread. I don’t think it was the time or the inconvenience of the process. It seems like it just fell away and I was unable to reestablish the routine. Whatever the reason, I plan to reincorporate bread making into my routine. This is not a New Year’s resolution, but it is a commitment to create a new habit.

© C O P Y R I G H T   2 0 0 9.  Mary Sullivan Holdgrafer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.