Feeding the Family: Baking

A family as large as the one I came from consumed lots of food over the years. We were all hard workers who burned up lots of calories. Calories that were replenished with breakfast, lunch, dinner, lunch, supper and snack. A large part of our lives revolved around feeding the family. You read about the garden, the canning and freezing, the chickens. The best part, though, was the baking. We never bought bread from the store. Every week mom baked several loaves of bread and several pans of buns. Is there any better smell than the smell of bread in the oven? And mom made the best buns. Mmmm, fresh buns made delicious sandwiches - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, meat sandwiches, pickle sandwiches, or just bread and butter. Every once in awhile, we were treated to the best cinnamon rolls any of us have ever tasted. They turned out perfect every time with lots of soft caramel. What a delicious Saturday night supper - sandwiches and cinnamon rolls!

Then there were the cookies. We didn't just make a couple batches of cookies. On Saturdays we made triple batches of three or four different kinds of cookies ... chocolate chip, peanut butter, ground raisin, oatmeal, molasses, sugar, and many more. The all time favorite that we made each time was chocolate chip. Many times I sat on the kitchen stool with a big bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough anchored between my legs as I used a big spoon to stir in the chocolate chips. And what fun it was to use a fork to press down the peanut butter cookies. We used the bottom of the toothpick holder to press down the molasses cookies. We ate cookies when they were fresh and we froze cookies for later.

Besides all the breads and the cookies we also made bars. Every time we had company, mom would go down the basement and bring up a variety of bars to put on a plate and thaw out while visiting with the company. When it was time for "coffee", the bars were all ready to go. We tried lots of different recipes with bars. They were all good.

The best baking of all, however, was the birthday cake! Every birthday (and we had lots of them) there was a large angel food cake with frosting and candles. Melt-in-your mouth angel food cake. I can taste it now. I told my family the only thing I want for my 60th birthday (I'm giving them plenty of warning) is a home made angel food cake. Will they come through for me? I hope so!