Not only did they make bread from scratch, but they made the yeast as well! Although it is doubtful that many women living today would remember making yeast, there are still those who take pride in making bread from scratch, just as their mothers and grandmothers did.  Recently, I listened and watched as one such lady prepared to make another “batch”, much as she had done thousands of times before. 

Sarah had no need for a measuring cup as she skilfully gauged just the right amount of flour, added a pinch of salt, and then the yeast that had been dissolving in a cup of lukewarm water.  At sixty-eight, she had been making bread from scratch for more than sixty years. Her recently well scrubbed hands  quickly mixed and kneaded the dough. Soon she would cover the mixing pan, the same pan that she had used all her life, with a clean white cloth and wait for it to ‘rise’. As soon as it had risen to fill the entire mixing pan, she would knead it once more and shortly after place it in the well worn baking pans themselves dating back to antiquity, three buns to each pan. Now she must wait for the dough to rise in the pans before placing them in the pre-heated oven of her electric stove. Sarah smiled to herself as she glanced at the clock knowing that there was really no need for it. She would know instinctively when the bread would need to be turned and when it would be baked.  As her thoughts travelled back through the years, she knew that it had not always been that easy.

Sarah remembered well the first time she had made bread, it was May 16, 1948 and she was one month shy of her eighth birthday. On that particular day her mother was ill and although her father was at home, mixing bread was women’s work, and  it was considered time for Sarah to learn. As she was not tall enough to reach the table, her father stood her on a stool and watching that she did not fall, passed along instructions from her mother. The bread was baked in the oven of the kitchen woodstove, and although she was not to do the baking that day, she soon learned the importance, as well as the almost impossibility, of having just the right amount of heat and judging how much wood  to put in the stove so the bread would bake but not burn. Since that day Sarah, who married at seventeen and raised a family of six, estimated that she had baked more than eighty thousand loaves of  bread! As she had some dough left over she invited me to a lunch of toutons and molasses with steaming hot tea.  It was delicious, filling, and I’m sure very fattening.

In her grandmother’s day the women always arose early and on baking days especially. Many an old timer can remember awakening to the sweet aroma of simmering molasses and batches of toutons sizzling on a hot pan. Even late sleepers would readily leave the comfort of their feather beds for these tasty morsels of fried bread dough.

The following recipe will make you 3 loaves of bread  or two loaves and toutons.

Ingredients

Homemade White Bread
Preparation Time: 30 minutes`
Rising time: 3 hours
Baking time:40 minutes

2 packages of active dry yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
2 teaspoons sugar
2 cups milk, scalded
1 cup cold water
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
¼  cup butter or shortening
 10-12 cups all-purpose white flour

Method

1. Add yeast to 1 cup of lukewarm water in which 2 teaspoons of sugar have been dissolved. Let stand in warm place for 10 to 15 minutes or until frothy.
2. Scald milk; add butter and stir until melted, then add water, salt and sugar; cool to lukewarm. Stir dissolved yeast and add to the lukewarm milk mixture, then quickly add half of the flour and beat with wooden spoon until smooth.
3. Gradually add remaining flour until too stiff to knead in a bowl. Turn out until a floured board and knead. Add flour until a moist dough, which no longer sticks to the board, is obtained.
4. Knead dough a further 10 minutes until surface is smooth and elastic. Place in oiled bowl and oil surface of dough; cover with a clean damp cup towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk (about 1 and1/2hours.)
5. Punch down dough and shape into 3 bread loaves; place into greased loaf pans and let rise until doubled (1-2 hours)  Bake 400 degrees F for 35 to 40 minutes or until it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Toutons

1. Fry ¼ -½  pound salt pork until brown and crisp. Remove pork scraps.
2. Break off small pieces of dough the size of a large egg; flatten dough into a circular shape in palms of hands until ½-inch thick. Fry bread dough in pork fat until browned on both sides.
3. Serve with warm molasses or syrup.