homemade bread

Last Saturday there was a bitterly cold wind blowing and it seemed the perfect day to make homemade bread. I make the dough while getting breakfast on. The first rising finishes up about lunch time, so we always sacrifice some of the dough to fry scones for lunch with a hearty bowl of soup. I haven’t made bread in months, so it was a real treat for all of us. It took me back to many fond memories of homemade bread, first watching my mother bake it every Saturday, the wonderful smells and then the tastes; my step-dad always said it was better than cake! I perfected my bread-making skills before I married and made all of our bread, 4-8 loaves a week, for the first ten years of family life; I made bread the day I got home from the hospital with my first baby. It was a way of life. I had my children with me at the grocery store one day and 4-year-old Eli noticed the shelves of bread for the first time. He was astonished, “Wow! You mean when people run out of bread they have to go to the store? When we run out we just make more!”

About the time I had my fifth child I just couldn’t keep up with it anymore and we started buying day-old bread to supplement our needs, and after a while my baking gradually slowed down to 2-3 times a month, and now I bake only on special occasions. A while back I thought about all that bread, all those hours mixing, kneading, baking, trying to save a few pennies, telling myself it was a good thing. And I thought to myself, boy was I stupid. I could have spent my time more wisely, we probably didn’t even save any money.

But baking this week made me think about it differently. My children were so delighted with the scones, I enjoyed them, too. And I realized that with all that baking I wasn’t making just bread, I was making sweet memories for my family that said “I love you” with every wafting aroma and sweet, warm bite, every piece of toast with cinnamon sugar dunked in hot chocolate, every PBJ or grilled cheese sandwich. Yes, it really was a good thing. And I think it won’t be so long this time before I bake again.


PS My basic bread recipe is from a Utah State University Extension service booklet which is no longer in print, but can be accessed at: http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/FN_283.pdf

Note that this recipe will need to be adapted for lower altitudes.