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The warm comfort of winter breads

Karen Wils photo Home baked rolls.

ESCANABA — Frost is on the windows and the north wind dances in the treetops.

As the timid January sun rises in the east, it’s a good time to break out the yeast.

Nothing warms up the house and welcomes a tired Yooper after a day of shoveling snow, ice fishing or outdoor work, like the smell of fresh baked bread coming out of the oven.

Back in Grandma’s days, one day of the week was usually reserved for baking bread. She was up at the crack of dawn, hair up in a bun, apron around her waist and had the pilot light lit on the stove for a day of baking.

A huge earthenware mixing bowl was on the table along with wooden spoons and a tin canister of flour. Then there was the clank-clank-clank as she fetched about a dozen bread pans out of the pantry.

Grandma did not need a recipe book. She knew how to make white bread, rye bread and oatmeal bread by heart. If you asked her how much flour to use, she’d just say keep mixing it in until the dough feels “right.”

She had her other chores planned around the baking of the bread. It is a process that keeps you close to home most of the day. First you scald your milk or boil water to melt your shortening and sugar or molasses. Then you set it to cool slightly while you dissolve yeast in water that is just the right temperature.

Then you fix breakfast for the family.

When the two mixtures are “just the right temperature” you mix them together and start whisking in flour, many cups of flour.

At some point the sticky blob becomes elastic like and then you roll the whole thing out onto a flour board and knead it until smooth.

The blob is covered with a clean dish towel and set on the back of the stove to rise. Then there is time for a cup of coffee and to do some dishes and make beds.

In an hour or so, Grandma is back in the kitchen to “punch down” the dough that is now growing over the top of the bowl.

Then some laundry is folded.

Now it’s time to shape the loaves and let them rise again while the oven heats up.

Something for dinner is prepared on the stove top while the bread bakes and fills the house with the most wonderful. Aroma.

Winter is certainly the time of the year to think about “winter wheat.” Some of the best wheat for making bread is planted in late fall and “winters over under the snow” and is harvested the following spring.

From the time I was a teenager, I enjoyed making homemade bread especially on a snow days. Kneading dough is such a great way to take out all your frustrations in a positive way.

My mother made homemade pizza crust, a yeast dough, almost every Saturday night just for a family snack. Oh, the aroma of her tender crust smothered with sauce, cheese and pepperoni on a wintery night.

My Aunt Nancy Hendrickson made the very best “Swedish rye bread” in town, years ago. When she baked bread loaves cooled on the tabletop and every cupboard top in the kitchen.

And the tradition continues. My niece Kristy made raisin bread to share at our Christmas gatherings.

So, if the cold weather has got you down and you’re looking for a project the whole family can help with, look for a simple bread recipe online. Or better yet, call Grandma and ask her to talk you through her bread recipe.

The toaster just popped up two slices of homemade bread. Pass the real butter please.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.

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