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The bells rang at the crack of dawn, their bright sound dampened by the thick blanket of snow that covered Kieferberg. The white sheet reflected the weak morning light into the bakery, helping to illuminate its insides. The long, dark winter had taken a toll on Elise and she wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed, a feeling that was not helped by the cold air sneaking in through the crystal covered windows. They had gotten drafty in places back in autumn, but the busy harvest season had prevented her from fixing it properly at the time. A temporary solution in the form of an old, bunched up rag had adorned the window ever since. When the wind outside picked up a little and the air vibrated through the gaps and into Elise's ears the sound alone made her feel far colder than the air itself did. She really should get around to fixing it properly soon…
“Once we heat the oven you'll be all warm and toasty.” Lebkuchen laughed at the shivering Elise as she tied back her hair and put on an apron.
“It's still gonna be hours until then!”
“We could have done it earlier if you got out of bed in time. Now help me over here will you.”
They no longer ran the sole bakery of the town. Under Elise's leadership the town had flourished and new people had moved in. Among them an aspiring bakery. Still, the two of them had kept up the practice from time to time under their own terms. The old bakery, it's bread and Granny Gretel all held too much importance in their lives to abandon it completely, even if it wasn't what they pursued professionally.
Today they were gonna bake black bread, which was one of the more time consuming varieties. They lifted a big wooden bread trough off of the shelf by the oven and carried it into the adjacent room where they placed it on a pair of uneven stools, leveling them out on each one with a block of wood which at that point might as well count as an family heirlooms.
“You can get the flour while I get the seasoning and starter. Do you remember how much?”
“A shovel of-”
"Two shovels.”
“-two shovels of wheat, one and a half flour pots full of rye.”
“Good, call if you need help.”
Elise walked over to the storage room, pulling a big metal pot off a shelf on the way, absentmindedly tapping it's bottom with her hand like a drum once on every step until she reached the pantry. Preparing the flour always was a messy affair, she wondered if that was why Lebkuchen always left it to her. The first time she helped out in the bakery as a child she made the mistake of putting on her nice dress — well, ‘nicer’ dress — out of excitement and ended up caught in a big cloud of flour. Lebkuchen would brush off little specs of it from her face for days afterwards.
Once the first pot was filled she carefully lifted it up, returned to the trough and emptied it out with as much care as to not make a mess, having learned from the mistake of her youth. She went back to get the second half and repeated the process.
Lebkuchen wasn't back yet so Elise decided to sift through the flour with her hands to get out all the clumps. Lebkuchen always told her that step was unnecessary since they'll knead plenty anyway, but she liked the sensation of the light flour passing through her fingers.
A moment later Lebkuchen returned with two bowls: one filled with seeds the other salt.
“Freya brought over some seeds she gathered in the fields this summer. I thought they'd fit the bread well.”
Elise made a mental note to give Freya a loaf as thanks. They put a few handfuls into the flour, then Lebkuchen presented the small bowl of salt.
“Now as you may remember, make sure to put in the salt.”
“-make sure to put in the salt. Yeah yeah you tell me that every time.”
“And you'll know why I do if you ever forget.”
As they waited for a pot of water to heat up to the appropriate temperature Lebkuchen eyed Elise up and down with a teasing smile.
“Say, why don't you try kneading today, you already look like a mess anyway.” She punctuated with a soft laugh and by brushing off some flour from Elise's nose.
“For goodness' sake…”
Elise pushed up her sleeves and got to work. She had done the kneading a few times in the past, though usually she was on water pouring duty.
She quickly became aware of how long it had been since the last time she gave it a shot. The flour and water never quite seemed to mix in the right proportions, forcing her to mix and re-knead several sections of the dough. All the extra work making her work up quite a bit of sweat.
“Hey, uhm… could you roll up my sleeves a bit more, it's getting kinda hot.”
“Hehe lucky you won't freeze to death after all.”
Lebkuchen reached over to undo Elise’s cuffs, rolling up each sleeve past her elbows, gently brushing her fingers against her arms a few times. Once done with that she also reached over to Elise's collar, undoing a few buttons. The unexpected move made Elise hold her breath.
“Wouldn't want you getting a heat stroke over there.”
Once the dough was finished Lebkuchen put her fingers on it's smoothed-over surface for a moment. Granny Gretel used to carve a cross into it at this point, mumbling something about gratitude. Elise can't remember the last time she had seen Leb perform that gesture.
They covered the trough with a big sheet matching the landscape outside, which reminded Elise that it was now time for her most dreaded part of the process: hauling in wood from the snowed-in shed. Bundled up with a scarf, gloves and a thick coat she made her way outside. The path they had carved through the knee deep snow had partially been snowed in again overnight.
Back when she still was a maid of all work she hated chopping wood, but now came to like it. Maybe because of the purpose, maybe because she no longer depended on it to get food scraps on the table. Over the years of helping out at the bakery she had gotten pretty good at judging how much they would need. She put the wood into the oven and prepared everything to light it later. First the dough had to properly rest until midday.
Elise always made sure to choose calm days for their bread baking, not wanting to be pulled in every direction by the different people of the town requesting her input or support. As much as she hated the snow and the cold, it provided her with that calmness as it made the town as silent as the surrounding forests under it's cover. A shared breakfast and lunch along with the time the two spent together baking was warmer and more rewarding than the snow could ever be cold.
After lunch she pulled out her old tinder box, struck a match and watched as the fire slowly started to spread from the kindling to the firewood. Just as slowly she noticed that she had made a big mistake in her preparations. She had forgotten to open the vent. The smoke from the oven leaked into the small room as Elise desperately tried to pull out the sheet of metal separating the oven from the chimney. The old metal whined and ached as Elise jerked it out in hasty pulls until the path up the chimney was free and the smoke escaped.
When the wood was almost completely burned down they started forming the loafs. Elise would scoop out the dough with a flat dish into a flour coated straw basket. With some practiced turns, shifts and a flip Lebkuchen then shaped it within the basket.
Once all the loafs were lined up in their baskets waiting next to the oven Lebkuchen moved on to clean out the ashes with a water-soaked broom. She could tell by the sizzle of the water hitting the clay bricks how hot the oven was, making sure not to cool it off to much with the liquid.
When the oven was almost cleared out Elise came into the room, having finished the clean up in the other one. Wanting a bit of revenge for the teasing earlier she gave some unhelpful commentary.
"You missed some over there, ... you sure that's not too much water?"
Lebkuchen almost 'accidentally' hit her with the broom's handle as a response.
"If you're feeling cocky you can put the bread in today instead." Lebkuchen said once finished, pushing a bread paddle into Elise's hands. The girl gulped, last time she gave it a shot she dropped the third or so loaf in the middle of the oven, having to awkwardly work around it to get the others in before Lebkuchen had to take over.
Lebkuchen flipped one of the baskets onto the paddle, unloading the dough. With an encouraging slap on Elise's shoulder she nodded towards the open oven door.
"Here goes nothing..."
With a forceful stroke Elise threw the loaf into the back wall of the oven. The dough miserably pealed off the bricks until it came to fully rest on the floor. Hey, still better than last time! Repeating the process with the next loaf (and a bit less force) she flinched as it too rammed into the wall.
"How is it going?"
"Perfectly fine!"
There were still many loafs left, surely she could pull off one decent placement between them, right? She gave her best until only two loafs remained, but knew there was no way she could get both of them in. Swallowing her pride she asked Leb for help, who managed to do it easily, closed the door and grinned at Elise afterwards. Mercifully she left the state of the breads in the oven uncommented.
Now it was time to wait.
It was the dead of winter, so the breads weren't done baking through until just before sunset. Re-equipped with the bread paddle and with another reassuring slap onto her shoulder Elise opened the oven door. She pulled the first one out. It was one of Lebkuchen's, so of course it was perfect. So was the next one. The rest were her own, the first of which looked... fine? Huh. Maybe she didn't have to worry that much after all.
Lebkuchen picked up the loaf and knocked on its bottom. It sounded hollow, which meant it was properly baked through. She gave an approving nod and smiled at Elise.
Continuing on there definitely were some loafs that looked worse than others, but that was normal. The floor of the oven had gotten damaged over the years, almost every time little bits of the clay bricks would break off, making the bottom of some breads uneven or bumpy. A larger hole in the back deformed at least one loaf enough that it didn't feel right to give it to others, so they always kept those for themselves. They had thought about getting it fixed, but in the back of their minds they feared that changing something about the oven would change the taste of the bread they had known since their childhood. The taste that connected them even in the rough days of their youth.
After all the breads were out of the oven came Elise's favourite part. They took a still warm loaf — the second one Elise had smashed against the wall and that then had sunken into the hole in the back — to the kitchen.
On big bread slices they spread goat butter they had gotten from their neighbor Lisbeth. The butter instantly began to melt, soaking into the bread. Elise loved eating all the bread they made, but this — still warm and after a day's worth of effort — was always the one she enjoyed most.
Just as she wanted to prepare another slice someone knocked at their door. It was Gustav. They invited him in, offering some of the bread and insisting he take a loaf with him as thanks to Freya.
He remarked how the texture was different than the bread Granny Gretel used to make, even if it tasted much the same.