Editor’s Note: Today’s guest blogger is Amy from Lehman’s. Like for many of around here, baking is a cherished tradition in her family, so today she’s sharing her fond memories of making doughnuts with her children (pictured above).
Cooking and baking in a big family takes its toll on a mom, so at an early age, the Murray Wright kids learned to spend some serious time in the kitchen. From making lemon bars to cinnamon rolls to canning applesauce, those kids learned to cook, bake and put up garden produce.
Snow days in December were an especially coveted time for us. When an unexpected “holiday” (snow day) appeared, it didn’t take long for five lively children to come spilling down the steps and land in the kitchen. Early on, a snow day tradition became making doughnuts. It seemed like a huge process, especially since the recipe (Edna Ruth Byler’s Potato Dough from the More With Less Cookbook) makes 100 doughnuts. But with five kids each assigned to a task, the “doughnut factory” was a huge success. I can still see the children lined up: one was rolling out dough, another cutting out the doughnuts, another was dropping them into the hot oil and the last two were dipping the doughnuts into the glaze.
Amazingly enough…the mess was kept at a minimum, no one every got burned and the end result was delicious. We would freeze one container and deliver plates of doughnuts to friends around the community. It always seemed a little ironic on a day when the roads were too dangerous to travel to school, we were always able to make it out the lane to deliver doughnuts. Having doughnuts in the freezer provided a great way to treat unexpected holiday guests to homemade treats.
Today the children are moving on with their adult lives. They live in Iowa, Kansas, California and Mexico but I can guarantee you, they remember Ohio snow days and the “Murray Wright doughnut factory!”
First posted in December 2018.
