Making Bread with Grandma

Catie who started making bread at 6 a.m.

It seems like only a few weeks ago that Catie Jarvis was driving in from Sicamous with her dad at 6 am.

Tom and Eric were going fishing with Art Treleaven. Catie was coming to my kitchen to make cinnamon buns for breakfast.

So I was taking out my camera this morning because Rhiannon wanted to help make bread.

"I love the taste of dough

At the same time I was thinking, hey, wasn’t I just doing this a few days ago.

However unlike Catie, Rhiannon is as interested in eating the raw dough as she is in learning to knead it.

... "this is the biggest chunk ever" ...

Sometimes she had one hand in the dough, and the other hand taking pieces of it to her mouth.

I was showing her how to do cinnamon buns the Johnson way – done by Nadine, Molly, Terry McBride and others from Aunt Virginia’s recipe.

The last time I was in Barnwell, Virginia was telling me that in the family cook book, the recipe is missing the key ingredient of 2 tablespoons of yeast.

..."I can get it all off with my teeth" ...

Since Mary has the Manna from Heaven cookbook in her collection, I pulled it out and did a pan of buns that traditionally takes a thin layer of icing sugar – and also using the technique of spreading butter and cinnamon on the dough, rolling it up and then cutting it – as well as using a sponge for the first rising.

Whichever method a person chooses, cinnamon buns are always better in Quebec.

Margarine is not sold here.

So Mary and Catherine bring out a pound of butter and put it on the counter when I say that I will make cinnamon buns.

 “Doesn’t the cost of the butter defeat the plan of making something at practically no cost?”, I always think to myself.

However in the tasting, I moved to a new position.

... "resting my right hand in the dough doesn't bother me at all" ...

Cinnamon buns taste better when made with butter.

And perhaps the dough does too, if one can generalize from Rhiannon’s love of the batter, although there is no butter in it.  The butter is saved for the filling and the icing, which must mean the dough has relatively few calories.

Arta