Homemade bread is a choice, not a chore

It's time to bake bread again. Time to relax and take pleasure in a day where you don't have to rush. Today, the world runs at breakneck speed. Everything has to be done yesterday and no one has time to breathe anymore. Today, I'm not in any hurry. I have risen early, before anyone gets up, to make some homemade bread.

By making a loaf of bread, things slow down for a while. Making bread from scratch isn't necessarily a lot of work either. You might be surprised how differently things look when you sit down to enjoy a slice of that bread.

Mixing the flour, yeast, milk, sugar, salt and shortening together starts the journey into the realm of calm. I choose the quiet method to bake bread. Everything is done by hand, the mixing, the stirring and the kneading. Everything seems more peaceful when the only sound you hear is the spoon gently scraping against the side of the bowl combining the ingredients.

The whole process is broken up into segments, working with the dough for only a short time. There's a 10-minute break right after you start. Work 10 minutes. Break 10 minutes. On your first break, enjoy a cup of coffee.

Coming back from break, it's time to knead the dough, the next step in the quest for tranquility. Kneading is the process of adding more flour to the sticky dough until it looks very smooth and no longer sticks to your hands. This might take 15 minutes. While you push and pull the dough, you let your mind travel to places limited only by your imagination. For me, it's like floating on a raft on the ocean. Push the dough, the raft goes up with the gentle wave; pull the dough, the raft comes down. The tension of the day seems to fade away each time you push and pull the dough.

When you return from rafting or wherever you traveled to, the dough has to rise until doubled, for about an hour and a half. Then, you punch it down and let it rise again until almost doubled, for about 45 minutes. More than two hours to dream. Go outside, breathe the air and feel the soft breeze. Lose yourself in beauty that surrounds you -- the colorful flowers, the green grass. Do you hear the birds singing?

That was refreshing. Now turn the dough onto a board, divide it into two balls, roll them up like jellyrolls and put them into greased pans. Let rise until doubled, for about one hour. Another 60 minutes to take pleasure in life and do nothing but just sit and enjoy.

Let's see, we took 15 minutes to gather our ingredients, 10 minutes to mix them together, 15 minutes to knead the dough, two minutes to punch the dough down and 15 minutes to roll it out and put it in a pan. That adds up to 57 minutes of working with the dough and 205 minutes to be free.

Returning from that pause, it's time to bake the two loaves of bread in a hot oven for 35 minutes, or until they turn a deep golden brown. The sweet, yeasty aroma fills the air and brings smiles to the faces of those who are close enough to enjoy it. Memories are brought back to some and created for others.

At last, the bread has finished baking. That golden mound awaits, ready for slicing and savoring. Cutting through the crisp, golden crust, warm and fresh from the oven, reveals a soft, slightly moist interior with little holes waiting to be filled with melting butter and maybe a dab of strawberry jelly.

Every now and then, we need to slow down, to take time to relax and breathe. For me, it's making homemade bread. I drift back to a simpler time when there was no hurry. Maybe we just need to stop for a while and smell the bread baking.

I think I'll have another slice.

Sallie Wysocki is a freelance writer from Larimer, Westmoreland County.