Inklings // August 2025

 

I'm back for another Inklings! (Check the rules for linking up on Heidi's blog here.)

This month's prompt is;

A breadmaking scene in book or film

As someone who loves making bread and baking, I had to do this month's prompt, and I found an extract from By the Shores of Silver Lake from the Little House on the Prairie series which was perfect! (Having done some research, by the way, I gather that here, biscuits are an equivalent to bread rolls.) 

Then Mary took Grace on her lap in the rocking-chair, and while Carrie made the beds and swept, Ma and Laura and Mrs. Boast put on their aprons, rolled up their sleeves, and washed the dishes and got dinner.

Mrs. Boats was great fun. She was interested in everything, and eager to learn how Ma managed so well.

"When you haven't milk enough to have sour milk, however to you make such delicious biscuits, Laura?" she asked.

"Why, you just use sour dough," Laura said.

Mrs. Boast had never made sour-dough biscuits! It was fun to show her. Laura measured out the cups of sour dough, put in the soda and salt and flour, and rolled out the biscuits on the board.

"But how do you make the sour dough?" Mrs. Boast asked.

"You start it," said Ma, "by putting some flour and warm water in a jar and letting it stand till it sours."

"Then when you use it, always leave a little," said Laura. "And put in the scraps of biscuit dough, like this, and more warm water," Laura put in the warm water, "and cover it," she put the clean cloth and the plate on the jar, "and just set it in a warm place," she set it in its place on the shelf by the stove. "And it's always ready to use, whenever you want it."

"I never tasted better biscuits," said Mrs. Boast.

I love this description, and it's fun to think that when we make sourdough bread, it's the same method Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family would have used. Although, I find it considerably harder than fourteen-year-old Laura to make sourdough!