Family Of Four: 12 - Baking Day
...On the bread baking day I would sometimes slip out of the nursery and run down to the kitchen. Pleading to be allowed to remain I entered with full participation into the activities, helping to knead the bread and to cut, slap, and shape the loaves when ready for their tin. I was completely happy and I thought the kitchen the most wonderful room in the world. The fire was huge and bright, Cook busy and bustling, the steel fender gleaming and warm to sit upon...
Mrs Vivien Hirst continues the enchanting story of her childhood spent in a big house in a Yorkshire mill town.
Mrs Hirst's stories were collected into a book, Family Of Four, by her nephew Raymond Prior, who was amused and entertained by them when he was a boy.
The house was run in a strict routine, beginning with the Monday wash, and continuing throughout the week with regular activities for each day. There had to be two baking days as the only cakes bought were the small fancies for the "At Homes" and the old-fashioned sponges made at Hobson's Bakery in the next road. These were baked in moulds of two designs, the one being tall and castellated, the other short, modelled with a lion couchant, and the cakes had a sticky, sugary substance on the bottom. They were a speciality and known throughout the district.
On the bread baking day I would sometimes slip out of the nursery and run down to the kitchen. Pleading to be allowed to remain I entered with full participation into the activities, helping to knead the bread and to cut, slap, and shape the loaves when ready for their tin. I was completely happy and I thought the kitchen the most wonderful room in the world. The fire was huge and bright, Cook busy and bustling, the steel fender gleaming and warm to sit upon.
Bread making was a strenuous task especially using the quantities our numbers required. The flour bin was so large that we were forbidden to climb in, and I would lift the lid, and hold it, to prevent it banging down on Cook as she bent halfway in to collect the flour. I watched as it was weighed and poured into an earthenware bowl, together with salt. Cook would hand me the yeast and tell me to crumble it into a small basin, before adding sugar and pouring over lukewarm water.
Then came a series of movements. The bowl was first placed on the fender for the flour to warm, then lifted on to a chair for the risen yeast to be added, and returned to the fender to be covered over by a clean tea towel until the contents of the bowl bubbled, when it was placed once more on the chair.
Next began the part I liked. Cook rolled up her sleeves and her plump arms commenced to knead, up and down, backwards and forwards, with speed and vigour while I added warm water at command, until the mixture at length turned into a firm, elastic dough. This dough was not yet ready to bake however, for it had first to rise, and then to be shaped into the tin.
At last all was prepared and the dough risen high enough in the tins for them to be thrust into the oven. After an interval there came forth the delicious smell of baking bread
When the loaves were brown the tins were drawn out of the oven and each one turned upside down so that the loaf tumbled into a cloth held in the hand. Then the bottom was knocked for us to hear whether it sounded hollow, a moment I waited for in eager anticipation. If it did, the loaf would be placed slanting on the table to dry - and there they would be, a row of golden, crusty loaves, a joy to behold, and worth all the time and trouble taken in the making.
Tea cakes were also baked, and best of all were the oven bottom cakes. They were about a foot round, and flat, and they had to be made just before a meal for they were split, thickly buttered and served hot. These were the most indigestible but scrumptious form of bread it was ever my good fortune to eat.
Cake, bun, and pastry baking gave me an equal pleasure. I think Cook must have been very patient, and perhaps also a little encouraged in her familiar task by the enthusiasm of the small girl, so eager and anxious to help.
