12 DAYS OF XMAS

The skin on Hansel’s hands was almost as cracked as the bread he made. 

With hands covered in flour, he pushed down on the dough, folded it, rotated it, and repeated the cycle.

With a cold cloth, he wiped away the sweat accumulating on his forehead. The fired up ovens had quickly turned the place into a sauna. It was a stark contrast to outside, where the ground was covered in snow, and Jack Frost whispered down people’s necks.

Hansel picked up the huge lump of dough, put it in a loaf pan and set it aside on another bench to rise. Exactly fourteen minutes. That was the trick to getting it to rise the perfect amount. It was something he had learnt from his great grandfather. The recipes which had been passed down from generation to generation were the only thing keeping the customers coming, and the business going.

His family always seemed to be one penny short, so it was especially important that he keep on working. Even if it meant skipping Christmas dinner. Again.

Anyways, time for the Christmas pastries, Hansel thought to himself. He would definitely make a few panetonnes–people loved those, as well as a traditional Slovakian treat–vianočka. Of course, he would also make a few other treats like ginger bread, mince pies, but later, towards the evening.

Hansel brought out a sizable bowl. These things were best done in large batches. Maybe, just maybe if he did everything fast enough, he might be able to attend the Christmas dinner with his family. But it was unlikely.

He opened two huge bags of flour and dumped them into the bowl. A mushroom cloud of fine white powder exploded into the air. It almost seemed as if it was snowing inside.

Next went the sugar. A cup of it.

Then a whole jug of full cream milk. Hansel thought about his nieces and nephews leaving cookies and milk for Santa. He hadn’t seen them in ages. He was just so busy.

A block of butter.

He took a quick glance at the small clock above the oven. Half an hour until Christmas.

Hansel took the big mass of dough out of the bowl and started to knead it. Even after decades of doing this, he still found the motion therapeutic. It was interesting to him how even the crustiest bread or hardest gingerbread started as a soft dough. Maybe it was interesting, because it reminded him of himself.

After a good time of kneading, he split the dough in two. Half would go towards making the panetonne and the other half would go towards making the vianočka. It would just need to rise for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, he would go back to the bread he had been making before. It had risen beautifully, and he could smell the yeasty and slightly nutty aroma emanating from the soft dough.

This will be a beautiful bread, he thought. Maybe he could send this one especially to the Christmas party.

As Hansel opened the door to one of the ovens, hot air rushed at him. Quickly, he used his baker’s peel to slide the tin with the dough into the oven. It would take around thirty minutes to bake, but the real trick was to look at the colour of the crust. A perfectly cooked bread had a golden crust, with light hints of yellow and brown.

He was looking forward to seeing that bread, even if he wouldn’t eat it, because he just knew that it would be amazing.

He took a bowl of raisins from the fridge that he had previously soaked in rum. These would mix in with the panetonne. The raisin and rum combination smelled heavenly, a fruity, wooden and sweet combination. He placed the bowl next to the two dough lumps. The thing was they didn’t look at all like dough lumps, they looked like deflated balloons.

Hansel pressed his fingers into the dough. It wasn’t fluffy or soft. It felt dense and heavy. Something had gone horribly wrong.

He fell into his chair as he realised what had happened. He had forgotten to put yeast in the mixture. A rookie mistake. Now the whole batch was ruined and he didn’t have the time, nor the ingredients to make another one. Hardly any shops were open on Christmas Eve so he’d spend hours hunting all the ingredients down, and by that time, it would be too late.

Everything was ruined. Without anything to sell, he would go broke, ruining his reputation at the same time.

‘Noooo!’ Hansel cried out. He buried his face in his hands. On Christmas Eve as well? This would be the worst Christmas ever, and he had had his fair share.

The little clock on the wall chimed. Midnight. Christmas.

Christmas was here already and he had nothing.

With every ounce of hope leaving him, Hansel fell asleep on the chair, dreaming of a happy Christmas spent together with family. They were all around a table. Having a feast. Someone was calling his name–they wanted him to pass something around. ‘Uncle Hansel?’

‘Uncle Hansel, can you hear me?’

Hansel jolted out of his sleep, surprised to see figures standing around him. It was his family. His father, his sister and her partner and their three children, and two of his cousins.

‘Uncle Hansel, we’ve come to help you,’ said his youngest nephew, only around six. ‘You never come to our Christmas parties because you’re always too busy, but this year, we’re here to help you so you can come too!’

Hansel’s heart ached. It was such a nice gesture but there was no way that anyone could help find all the ingredients and bake the sweet breads in time.

‘It’s so nice of you all, it really is,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid I made a bad batch and now there’s no coming back from it. It would be insane to even try.’

Hansel’s sister looked him in the eyes. ‘It’s never insane to try. You should know that.’

Hansel looked down.

‘After all,’ continued his sister. ’It’s Christmas, and everything is possible on Christmas.

‘Yes!’ shouted Hansel’s two nephews and niece in unison.

‘The kids can stay behind to help you prepare while we, the adults, will go in search of ingredients.’

Hansel couldn’t help but smile. ‘I’ll make sure the oven’s at the right temperature.’

‘That’s the spirit!’ said his father, clapping him on the back.

And so they all went their separate ways. While the adults shopped, Hansel and his niblings worked together to throw away the failed dough, clean the room, and set things up for the next batch that would be made.

Hansel chuckled as his nephews clapped their floury hands, sending mini flour clouds into the air, and smiled when his niece wrote a Merry Christmas in the flour. It was these small moments with family that he had missed. And it was just now that he remembered how precious it was.

The doorbell rang and the adults stepped inside, with pale skin and chattering teeth.

‘We have the flour and sugar,’ said the cousins.

‘I brought the milk,’ said the father.

‘And I brought the yeast,’ said Hansel’s sister proudly.

‘Uhh, I already had that, the only problem is that I didn’t use it.’ Hansel said.

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s fine.’

The whole family laughed and it was a sound like nothing before.

Together they mixed the ingredients and created dough.

This time the dough rose perfectly. Hansel mixed the raisins into the panetonne and his sister braided the vianočka.

He put the twenty panetonnes and thirty vianočkas into the two ovens. It was a bit hard to get them all in, but he managed. It was only two hours past midnight–somehow they had managed to bake everything in time.

‘You kids must be tired,’ said Hansel to his niblings.

‘Yeah, it’s way past our bed time.’ they said with a yawn.

‘And what if in the morning instead of tending to the bakery, you can come over to our house and someone else can take over your job for the day?’ suggested his sister.

‘I can!’ volunteered a cousin.

Hansel smiled. Finally he would be able to spend Christmas with family, all because of their help and generosity. Christmas really did feel like a time where everything was possible.

Maybe that small mishap with the yeast had been like a breadcrumb, guiding him towards something better.