Group teaches baking as a ministry project

While Glenda Crosno mixed the ingredients for dough, her audience was frantically scribbling notes on recipe cards hoping to replicate her rolls when they got back home.

The basement kitchen of Christ Presbyterian Church in Cape Girardeau was set up almost like the kitchens on TV cooking shows. The oven was warm, filling the room with the smell of freshly baked rolls. A batch of dough was prepared and waiting in the refrigerator and all the ingredients for a third batch lined a table near the center of the room.

There weren't any cameras or commercials, though, and Crosno took plenty of questions as she worked. Some women asked her questions about variations to the recipes, others wanted to know exact measurements for each step in the recipe.

"I don't even like the rolls because I've made so many," Crosno said.

Using a recipe she's had for 48 years, Crosno taught a group of 20 women how to make a basic sweet roll dough Monday during a cooking class sponsored by the church. She made plain rolls, cinnamon rolls, pecan rolls and orange-cranberry-pecan rolls.

There are plans for the cooking classes to continue monthly, focusing on a variety of home-cooked favorites from chicken and dumplings to pie crusts and breads. The exact schedule hasn't been worked out yet, though.

Crosno and a group of ladies at the church who call themselves the Merry Maids have been baking and sending their treats out to area businesses, Central Junior High School employees and Teen Challenge.

The women bake rolls and cookies about once a month and deliver them around town.

The cooking class series is an offshoot of that ministry. "It is sort of like an outreach to the community," said Tana McLaird.

Many of their recipes will be included in a church cookbook to be published soon.

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126