Rolling for Bon Buns – story by Polly Kolstad Published: Great Falls Tribune 5/21/2013
It’s seven thirty
in the morning, and Susie Knight and Don Hanson are already kneading, punching,
and revitalizing dough. A couple of
dueling “doughies,” they are out to get the sweet roll that rules them all: the
cinnamon rolls and sticky Bon Buns from the old Parisian Room at the Paris of
Montana which later became the Bon Marche in Great Falls.
It’s a walk down
memory lane, with a sweet bite from decades ago. Knight’s father, Frank, had the homemade candy
business on the first floor of the department store from the 1950s to the
1970s. Hanson’s father was a sign maker
and often penned posters and sales signage for the various departments within
the store. Cinnamon rolls and Bon Buns
were part of the family; beyond compare.
Laughter and reflection percolates as coffee
is poured and a gregarious gang of old high school pals assimilate. These serious bun lovers have finally tracked
down the regaling recipe. And though they
are a couple of hours away from the showcase; the rolls of life, the ones to
savor, dominate the conversation.
Doubtful, a
singular waft of cinnamon pervades the walls of what today is the NEW building
on the corner of Fourth Street and Central Avenue. Yet, the nostalgic essence strayed from
bakers ovens for decades, even out onto the street where, according to John
McIntosh there was a line that formed at ten o’clock every morning for the
fifty cent privilege of getting a hot one with coffee. For McIntosh whose family had McIntosh
Taylors, a twenty minute coffee break was worth it if you queued up before they
sold out.
Steps away,
Leslie Stafford would run from her work at Doris Photo Studio to get a roll for
herself or purchase several for her parents, Cliff and Barbara Rumford who
owned Great Falls Sporting Goods.
The real appeal
is credited by some to Nadine Worth who worked at the Paris from 1955 through
the 1980s. She learned how to make the rolls on her own, from scratch. Part of her
secret success, according to Helen DeVoss, was her large hands. She was a short, stout, jolly lady, who
arrived at the café kitchen to begin assembling and kneading the sweet bread
dough at 4:00 am. Even at home, she
baked. She delighted in making her children’s
birthday cake and surrounding the confection with cinnamon rolls. Worth was 86 years old when she died in 2010.
If there’s one pastry
that rules them all, it was the cinnamon rolls that DeVoss remembers in the Parisian
Room glittering glass case. You could pick which one you wanted and with each
bite let it melt in your mouth while you looked down below to the action on the
store’s main street level.
In those days, few
things were more immediately recognizable.
For
Paula Wilmot, employed for a time as a sales clerk in the store, the cinnamon
rolls were a big deal. “That was lunch,”
she said.
“They were huge,”
recalls Noreen Udall who waitressed at the Parisian Room throughout her high
school years in the 1960s. “And, we were never shy with cubes of butter that
went with them.”
The bakers rolled out cinnamon rolls in giant
measure daily. There were four pans that
held twenty-four rolls each: two of the cinnamon and two of the carmel. That accounts for 96 rolls daily, and they
went fast. Employees planned ahead so they could put one aside.
As teenager in
the sixties and seventies, Steve Gonser worked behind the scenes as a dishwasher.
“I would come in
to work a half hour early so I could get one of those huge cinnamon rolls. There were tons of regulars who came in
everyday,” said Gonser, who is proud of the fact that he beat the roll rush.
No stranger to
the making of the rolls, Jeanne Shigley worked at the Paris for twenty-six
years and managed the Parisian Room for the last eight years before it closed. (The Paris of Montana became the Bon Marche and
closed in 1998.)
Shigley
remembers, “In my time, Marge Ethier, and Nadine Worth both worked there. Shirley Strabeck was the last baker. The
reason the rolls turned out so well was because of the amount (bulk) of the
recipe and the brick lined ovens that raised them to be so light.”
“I watched the
bakers make the carmel rolls. The
topping was just brown sugar, butter and cream, and the frosting for the
cinnamon rolls (drizzled on while they were hot), was powdered sugar thinned
with water.”
Acclaim abounds
for these coffee saucer size rolls while Shigley notes that they shipped them all
over the world. Worth was even invited
to Seattle to show the administration at the store’s headquarters her baker’s
style of making cinnamon rolls.
On
this bright spring day, the many spins on Bon Buns turned to drooling as the
fragrant pans emerged from the oven. The appetites for these long sought after
rolls defy any virtue of table manners.
They are drizzled with sugar glaze and handed over to the waiting
crowd. Conversation died with satisfied
sighs of taste delights. The best ever
cinnamon rolls were devoured, and any remaining morsels were carefully wrapped.
The raving repast
continued: rolling for Bon Buns circa 2013.
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The Parisian Room Cinnamon Rolls or Bon Buns
Sweet Roll Dough
½ cup warm water
2 pkg. dry yeast
½ cup sugar
½ cup shortening or butter
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons salt
1 ½ cups warm milk
7 cups flour
Combine warm
water and yeast. Let sit until it
foams. Combine the sugar, salt,
shortening, milk, and eggs. Then, put in
the yeast mixture and mix well until shortening has melted. Add enough flour to knead the dough on a
floured board until it is smooth and elastic.
Be sure to use all the flour.
Put in a greased
bowl. Let rise until doubled (about 45
minutes). Punch down. Let rise until doubled again. Punch down.
Roll dough out
on a floured board. Spread with soft
butter and sprinkle with a mixture of sugar, cinnamon, and raisins or
nuts. Roll up in a log and cut into
slices; about 1 ½ inches wide.
For carmel rolls,
while dough is in last rising stage, make the carmel topping:
½ cup melted
butter
2 cups brown
sugar
1 cup ½ & ½ cream
Combine all
ingredients in a bowl and mix together.
Pour half the carmel topping into a 9 x 13 inch pan. (use other half in another 9 x 13 inch pan). Carefully place half the rolls in pan leaving
space between to rise until double.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
Remove from oven. Cool a
bit. Turn pan upside down while still
warm onto platter.
For cinnamon
rolls: Place in a buttered 9 x 13 inch
pan leaving space between to rise until double.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Drizzle with glaze: powdered sugar/water
mixture.
Recipe makes two 9 x 13 inch pans.
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