“My grandmother cut these stamps with her nail scissors in 1952. Now I’m the one who has to put them away.” — Why a 71-year-old Wisconsin pottery painter is selling her last hand-stamped baking dishes at a special price, before her studio closes for good.

The cigar box sits on the shelf above Bernice Sobczak’s workbench, where she can reach it without looking. Inside are fourteen small stamps cut from kitchen sponges. Their edges are hard and dark blue from seventy years of paint.

Bernice is 71. She has pressed flowers onto clay with these stamps since she was nine years old. This September she put the lid on the box for the last time.

“Seventy years, and they still print. My thumb is what gave out first, not the sponge.”

Fourteen sponges and a pair of nail scissors

Bernice’s grandmother, Stanisława, came to Wisconsin from Poland in 1949. She brought almost nothing with her. But she knew how the old Polish potters decorated their dishes.

They didn’t paint the flowers with a brush. They pressed them on with small stamps cut from sponge, one dab at a time. Five dabs make one flower. A few hundred make a dish.

In 1952, Stanisława sat down at her kitchen table in Stevens Point with a stack of new kitchen sponges and her nail scissors. She cut fourteen stamps: petals, dots, little leaves. When Bernice was nine, she put the first one in her granddaughter’s hand.

“She said, ‘You don’t push it. You kiss it onto the clay.’ Too hard, the flower smears. Too soft, it’s a ghost. I’ve heard her say it every day for sixty years.”

The basement on Clark Street

Since 1984, Bernice has made baking dishes in the basement under her house. A small window at lawn height lets the morning sun in. Sixty stamps hang on hooks on the wall. The old kiln in the corner ticks while it cools.

She sold her dishes at the St. Peter’s church bazaar and at Polish Fest in Milwaukee. Over 41 years, that added up to about 9,000 dishes. Women still bring her dishes she made in 1990 — still baking, still in one piece.

“People think it’s painted. Most of it is pressed. One flower is five presses. One dish is about three hundred and forty.”

“Nobody I know makes a casserole for twelve anymore”

In the early years, Bernice made big baking dishes, the kind for a family of eight. Then, one bazaar after another, her regular customers started asking for something smaller. Their children had moved out. They were cooking for two.

So Bernice made a dish for two. People who order one today usually write the same thing first: “It’s smaller than I thought.” That is on purpose. Here is what 41 years taught her:

• “The Made-for-Two Size”: About 7½ by 5 inches inside and 2 inches deep. It holds two to three cups — a casserole, a side dish or a piece of fish for two. “In a big pan, a supper for two dries out in the corners,” Bernice says. “In this one, it stays just right.”
• “The 340-Press Pattern”: Every flower is built from several small stamps, the dots and the border too. That is why no two dishes look exactly alike.
• “The Cobalt Double Grip”: Two wide blue handles, big enough for oven mitts. You take the dish out of a hot oven and set it on the table without tipping it.
• “The Oven-to-Table Glaze”: The dish goes into the oven and the microwave. You bake in it, serve in it and put the leftovers in the fridge in it. Baked-on cheese comes off after a short soak.

“They make it for two now, and they want it to look like Sunday. That’s all I ever tried to do.”

Two patterns, and never a third

Wildflower has orange and blue flowers, the way the ditches along County Road J look in July. Poppy has red flowers with cobalt dots. It was Stanisława’s favorite.

“My grandmother said two patterns is plenty. If you can’t make two good ones, ten won’t help you.”

The morning her thumb said no

What Bernice will miss most are the early mornings. The basement is cool, the radio is low, and the first dish of the day comes out of the kiln still warm.

Last winter the base of her right thumb began to ache. The doctor called it arthritis. It will not get better. She can still hold a coffee cup. But a stamp needs the same soft pressure, hundreds of times in a row.

“After twenty presses my hand starts shaking and the flowers smear. I can’t do three hundred and forty anymore. So that’s that.”

In September she loaded the kiln one last time. There is no one to take over. 212 baking dishes are left, Wildflower and Poppy together. In December, the kiln will be sold.

“A dish belongs in the oven, not in a china cabinet”

Hand-stamped baking dishes like these can cost up to $170 in American stores. For her last 212, Bernice could ask that much. Everyone would understand. She won’t.

“If it never gets a little browned cheese on the edge, I painted it for nothing.”

She is asking far less. She wants her last dishes on real tables this Thanksgiving and this Christmas — in kitchens where two people still sit down to dinner every night.

Bernice doesn’t use a computer. Her great-nephew Marek, a physical therapist in Green Bay, saw the boxes in the basement at a Labor Day cookout and asked where they were going. “The bazaar,” she said. He spent a weekend taking photos and set up the page where you can order now.

“Marek says more people will see them in one night than in forty years at church. I told him fine, as long as they get used.”

What home cooks say about Bernice’s baking dishes

• ★★★★★

  “It really is the right size for the two of us. Mac and cheese for two, a little meatloaf, a peach crisp. It goes from the oven straight to the table, and my husband says dinner looks like a restaurant now.”

  Donna W., Appleton, WI
• ★★★★★

  “My mother had dishes with flowers like these when I was little. When I unpacked the Poppy one, I had to sit down for a minute. You can see every little stamp up close.”

  Carol J., Toledo, OH
• ★★★★★

  “Bought the Wildflower for myself and then a Poppy for my sister. Solid and heavy, nothing thin about it. It came packed like it was made of eggs.”

  Sharon P., Erie, PA

Three questions people ask before ordering

Where can I buy one of Bernice’s baking dishes?

Only through this page. Bernice’s dishes are not sold on Amazon, Temu or in any store.

How long will they be available?

Only while supplies last. The kiln has been fired for the last time, and there are 212 dishes left across both patterns. Once a pattern is gone, it is gone for good.

What if it’s not right for me?

You have 30 days to try it at home. If you are not happy, just send a short email and you will get your money back. No questions, no hassle.

More from people who bake in one every week

• ★★★★★

  “I live alone since my husband passed, and I had stopped cooking real food. This little dish got me baking again. One chicken breast and some potatoes, and it looks like Sunday dinner.”

  Marlene K., Saginaw, MI
• ★★★★★

  “Microwave, oven, fridge — I use it for everything. The handles are big enough for my oven mitts, which matters with my hands.”

  Joyce R., Dubuque, IA
• ★★★★★

  “Gave one to each of my two daughters for Christmas. Both called the same evening to ask where I found it. I told them a lady in Wisconsin made it by hand.”

  Patricia L., Scranton, PA