It was the late Mary Matrician's recipe that started a tradition in the Panther Valley that's been going on since the early 1950s.

In the weeks preceding Easter members of Lansford's Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church gather in the basement to make Paska bread.Back when they first started, Matrician, who was an active member of the parish, and fellow volunteers would make 25 loaves.About 25 years ago, Helen Neifert took over the operation and doubled that. Eventually, she doubled it again, to 100 loaves in a day."Mary's recipe used nothing but fresh ingredients, and we still do. It's all pure," says Neifert.Those ingredients, while simple, include 100 pounds of flour, 25 pounds of sugar, 11 dozen eggs, 5 gallons of milk and 10 large containers of sour cream.Although women outnumber men in the production, it all starts with Dean Daderko and John and Mike Kokinda, who make the dough in an industrial-sized mixer. From there the dough is transferred to a 5-gallon bucket and covered with plastic wrap. It is then moved to the proofing room to rise, where the temperature can reach up to 100 degrees.After it rises, the dough is moved to a table in the church's kitchen to be kneaded, cut and weighed into two different-sized balls. Some are 8 ounces and others 16 ounces. After a short rest, the dough is rolled into a cylinder shape, then two rolls are woven together to for 1-pound and 2-pound loaves. The loaves are each placed in a generously greased pan before going back into the proofing room.When the dough has risen again, it's placed in one of several ovens and baked at 325 degrees for 35 minutes."We have six ovens, which hold four 2-pound dough pots at a time, or the ability to bake a total of 24 loaves of bread," says Marcia Evans. "Usually we bake the larger loaves in the kitchen ovens, about 15-16 loaves, and the small loaves (about eight to 10 loaves) in the ovens in the meeting room."Once the bread starts to bake, we produce 20 loaves, or the equivalent, about every 45 minutes," says Evans.After the loaves are baked, they are cooled and packaged.The production takes place one day in the fall for Thanksgiving and twice in the spring leading up to Easter, for a total of 300 loaves.