Into the Woods

A long time ago I checked out How to Make Possum's Honey Bread by Carla Stevens, 1975, from the library.  I was intimidated by yeast. I grew up on homemade bread, dinner rolls, cinnamon buns, you name it, but my own adventures with yeast had been less than inspiring. Parker house rolls you could use as an offensive weapon, ninja throwing star pizza crusts, harvest loaves that were better stopping the autumn drafts under the doors than sulking like lead in your belly.

But here was a children’s book that made the whole process seem incredibly accessible, including a recipe. After all, if a possum can do it…The girls and I tried it, following along with the story just like the woodland critters in the book, mixing, kneading, waiting, kneading again. Probably with just as much hair and sticky fingers as the critters too. They were 2 and 4 years old and loved the whole adventure. Quite a bit of flour decorated the kitchen and some of it even fell into the bread bowl sometimes. There’s not much difference between bread dough and playdough anyway, so they thought it was great fun. Into a loaf pan and into the oven with the thing.

And we turned out a darn fine loaf of bread.  The yeast spell had been broken. I can bake with yeast fine now. I think I was just intimidated by it before.  The book had to go back to the library, but the recipe stayed in my collection.

If you need a little woodland magic to help you get past a yeast roadblock, here’s how it goes.

Possum’s Honey Bread

7 cups flour

½ cup honey or maple syrup or molasses

½ cup butter

2 t salt

2T or 2 pkg yeast

1 ½ cup hot water

1 cup warm water

Pour hot water in a bowl, add salt, butter, honey. Stir til the butter melts. Put yeast in the warm water. Add to the bowl. Add 6 cups of flour. Knead, adding more flour as needed. When smooth, grease the bowl with butter and put the dough in, grease the top. Cover. Wait 1 ½ hours. Poke it. If the hole stays, it’s ready, if not, let it rise longer. Punch down. Grease 2 large pans. Cut dough and put in pans. Let rise one hour. Bake in 350° oven for 45 minutes. It should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. (Takes about 4 hours total to make.)