Baking Bread

Lately I've been craving homemade bread.  I love the yeasty aroma of bread baking in the oven.  I have watched the beautiful dough filled pans turn a golden color as they mound above the pan edges.  Pulling them out and rubbing them with butter to keep the crust from getting too hard.  The knife is waiting for it to cool enough to cut, that first bite is the most wonderful mouthwatering flavor in the world.

I learned in 4-H long ago how to make yeast bread and rolls.  I had the most amazing 4-H advisor, Mary Mott and our club was called "Happy Workers".  She taught us to make bread in her own farmhouse kitchen.  Several 4-H'ers would gather at her house on a summer morning and begin the process.  It was often messy and flour was everywhere and I don't recall she ever seemed to mind the mess.  Our reward was watching the dough rise in those towel covered bowls all in a row.  As soon as it had risen enough it was punched down and kneaded to eliminate air pockets and then formed and placed into the waiting greased bread pans.  Another hour of waiting for it to rise before it went into the oven.  Oh, it was the most wonderful moment when we pulled them hot from the oven.

Of course we made yeast rolls too, they were perfect cloverleaf rolls in 4-H.  They were the best, fresh gathered eggs and real butter was used, giving them the most amazing golden color.  When rolls were made at our house when I was growing up, I always made a double recipe.  Everyone love the homemade rolls.  My grandmother also made yeast rolls, she would flatten out a ball of dough and the swish it around in melted butter, fold it in half and place it in the rectangular shaped pan.  I will never forget the smell and taste of her yeast rolls at the Christmas table.

I still made bread and rolls when my children were growing up.  I'd roll the dough out on our old butcher block in the center of the kitchen, flour everywhere and then turn it into a great yellow crock bowl with a towel over the top to rise.  That bowl was then placed inside a cupboard to rise.  You see we had hotwater heat during those days and the person who installed that system in the kitchen ran the heater lines inside the cupboards, they were always toasty warm and in the winter, we'd have to leave the cupboard doors open to have a warm kitchen.  It did make the most perfect place for yeast dough to rise.  Those cupboards also made the most wonderful place for our cat Polly to take a winter nap.

I then remember getting a bread making machine.  All the ingredients were placed inside a "bucket" and it was mixed, allowed to rise a couple times and then baked.  In three hours the entire house smelled of fresh baked bread.  As soon as the timer went off the "bucket" was pulled from the machine so it could cool faster and then be cut and slathered with butter and jam.  My mouth waters just thinking about it.

Might be just the thing to do today!