Treebread Day ...

2017

Yesterday was Treebread Day here at our house--the day that I mix and bake the Christmas-tree-shaped* bread that I've known since childhood. I've written about it here before--and even included the recipe (which you can find by Googling "dawnreader treebread")--so I'll not go into all that much detail this time. But it is an annual ritual for me ... so ... bear with me.

I remember my mother making a tree-shaped bread back when I was a boy. She didn't do it every year (if you look at the recipe, you'll see it's a bit of a bother)--but enough so that when I married Joyce in 1969, I thought it would be a good tradition to continue.

Not that I did it right away. Although I started baking our bread not long after we got married (for pecuniary rather than gustatory reasons--though the motive very quickly segued into the latter), I did not do the treebread for a few years. It seemed so ... daunting.

But eventually I did it, fashioning it, I think, on some similar recipe I found in a cookbook. I should say here that I do not know what recipe my mother used--probably something she found in a magazine (our source for information before the Net). It's not one of the recipes I acquired from her.

And besides, since the summer of 1986 I've been using sourdough rather than "regular" yeast for virtually all our baking.** So I would have to say the recipe I use has ... evolved.

I got up at seven a.m. on Sunday morning (my wonted baking time). The sourdough starter had been bubbling away during the night (before going to bed I'd fed it with its favorite-and lone--diet: 2 cups of warm water, 3 cups of flour), so, first thing, I put two cups of starter back in the container, then back in the fridge. The rest would become the Christmas trees.

Before doing anything else, I cut up a cup of dried apricots, got a cup of mixed candied fruit ready, a cup of slivered almonds ... the other ingredients. Then mixed and kneaded and huffed and puffed and blew myself down (almost).

The treebread dough is heavy, so it took more than three hours to complete its rise--during which time I cleaned up, headed off for our Sunday morning routines with Joyce (the New York Times and a toasted bagel at Panera, grocery shopping at nearby Acme and Heinen's). Then ... home to unpack and write a letter to my mom and work on my blog and wait for the dough to finish rising.

When I was satisfied it was ready, I sprayed oil on two large baking sheets, then tossed the dough out onto a floured board, cut it in half, then cut one of the halves into half again. I then cut off pieces of the dough, rolled them in my hands into little "ropes," which I laid out on the sheets to resemble a Christmas tree--or (see below) a rattlesnake. One large tree--which I will send to my brothers and their families in Massachusetts, two small trees--which we will consume here. I let them rise again for about an hour and a half, then popped them into a 400-degree oven to bake--and to permeate the house with that bread-baking smell that I adore.

Moments before serving them on Christmas Day, I will warm them up (after thawing them from their days in the freezer), then decorate them, swabbing them with icing (powdered sugar & water) that will make them look exactly like a tree outdoors in winter (or a snow-covered rattler--see below), then sprinkle on the icing some more of the candied fruit (with a maraschino cherry on top!), making it look now exactly like a decorated snowy tree (or--see below--a rattler, who must be rather puzzled by now).

We will peel off and consume some soft, warm chunks while we're opening gifts with our sticky fingers. (I think this year I will begin by biting off the head of the snake--just to be sure.)

Every year I wonder if this will be the last time for such a routine--no, such a tradition, a ritual. Will I be healthy enough next year? Will ...?

Oh, let's not get into that. Let's just enjoy the treebread, once again, and feel the gratitude that I feel right now--for my mom, for Joyce and family, for the health that has permitted me to do this, year after year after year.

May there be another ...


*a Facebook friend told me it looked like a coiled rattlesnake ... sort of does ... a nice holiday gift!
**I acquired the starter in the summer of 1986 in Skagway, Alaska, on a trip there with our son, 14 at the time, to explore both family history and The Call of the Wild, which had begun to obsess me. I have posted about this before. Google it, if you're interested.