61. A Ring Has No End and No Beginning

Anton: In the year 1746, a count in a land of forests and hills had a birthday. A guest wrote down what he saw at the party: a cake as large as an oven could bake, with a hole for every year of the count's life and a candle standing in each hole.

Vera: So birthday candles are nearly three hundred years old.

Anton: Older still, perhaps, so the story goes. But that is one of the first times somebody wrote them down.

The Head of the Table

Vera: Quinn turns seven tonight. She is sitting at the head of the table in Anton's own chair, under the copper pans, with her feet nowhere near the floor.

Anton: Then tonight she gets the last bread of the long day. A braided wreath. Three ropes plaited together, as we did with the egg loaf in the afternoon, and then the braid bent round into a ring and joined so that nobody can find the seam.

Vera: Why a ring?

Anton: A ring has no end and no beginning. In many lands, from the northern forests to the islands of the warm south, people bake rings for birthdays, weddings and the first day of spring. It is a wish that the good things go round and round.

My Godmother's Kitchen, Long Ago

Vera: Every year until I was twelve, my godmother Vilma baked me a wreath like this. Her kitchen had a cuckoo clock that was always seven minutes late, and a yellow cloth on the table that came out only for birthdays.

Vera: On my seventh birthday, I took a deep breath to blow out the candles, and at that very moment the cuckoo burst out of the clock and shouted. I blew so hard from fright that every candle went out at once, and Vilma said that was the luckiest thing she had ever seen.

Vera: I believed her. I still do. Every birthday since, I have listened for a cuckoo.

At the Work Table

For one wreath, about twelve slices: 500 g plain flour (4 cups), 7 g instant yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons), 60 g sugar (1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon), 8 g salt (1 1/2 teaspoons), 200 ml warm milk (3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon), 2 eggs, 80 g soft butter (1/3 cup) and the grated peel of 1 lemon.

One more beaten egg and 2 tablespoons coarse sugar for the top. Oven: 180°C (350°F).

Vera: A child mixes and kneads the dough for ten minutes, until soft and smooth. Cover and let it rise for an hour and a half, until doubled.

Anton: Cut it into three pieces. A child rolls each into a rope about 70 cm (28 inches) long.

Vera: Pinch the three tops together and braid: the right rope over the middle, then the left rope over the middle, again and again to the end.

Anton: Lay the braid on a lined tray, bend it into a ring, and tuck the two ends under each other, pinching them together underneath. A small greased ovenproof bowl in the middle keeps the hole round.

Vera: Cover and let it rise for forty-five minutes. A child brushes it with egg and scatters the coarse sugar, like frost on a hedge.

Anton: A grown-up bakes it for twenty-five to thirty minutes, until deep golden, and lifts it out with oven gloves. Let it cool on a rack.

Vera: Push the candles into the cooled braid. A grown-up lights them. Hair tied back, sleeves pushed up, nobody leaning over the flames. Blow them out, then take them out before cutting.

Candles Lit, Lamps Dimmed

Question: Quinn asks why the ends of the braid are tucked underneath.

Answer: Tucked underneath, the join is hidden and held shut by the weight of the wreath. Left on top, the ends would pull apart as the dough rises and the ring would open.

Three quick questions. One: How many ropes make the braid? Two: Where do the ends go? Three: When do the candles go in?

Answers. One: Three. Two: Tucked under each other, beneath the ring. Three: When the wreath has cooled.

The End of the Long Day

Vera: Seven candles. One deep breath. Look at that. Every one out at once.

Anton: Lucky, as Vilma would say. We started this morning with oats and honey before the sun was up, and here we are at a birthday ring in the dark, with flour on the floor and every child of the street still awake.

Vera: Then one last cup. Cold milk whisked with a handful of crushed strawberries and a spoon of sugar, pink as the sky before sunrise. Quinn first, then everyone. Slice the wreath, Anton. The long day has gone round like a ring, and it ends at the table where it began.

A Note from the Author

Thank you for spending this long day at the table. I hope a little flour has fallen on these pages, and that some of the breads have become your own: changed a little, burnt once or twice, and made again on a better morning.

I wrote this book for the hours I love best in any kitchen, when a child is waiting by the oven door and a grown-up is remembering something from long ago. The recipes matter, but those hours matter more.

If you bake from a faraway land, I hope you will one day eat that bread where it is made, and find that your own loaf was not so far from it after all.