The habit of baking bread

“Woman baking bread” by Jean-François Millet

Most Fridays I bake bread. Usually the same type: a sourdough loaf following the Tartine method—75 percent hydration, 90 percent bread flour, and 10 percent whole wheat flour. It takes me most of the day. 

My Friday habit of baking bread begins on Tuesday. Tuesday evening I begin feeding a dormant sourdough starter. Twice per day—morning and evening, before bed and after I wake—I add equal parts flour and water to a tablespoon or two of the starter. Rhythmic feedings activate the natural yeasts in the starter, urging them to vitality, coaxing them into a predictable rise and fall. 

By Thursday evening the starter is ripe, primed with potential. Its readiness indicated by a slightly sour, slightly sweet smell and by a pock-marked surface that betrays bubbles of carbon dioxide (the byproduct of yeast feeding on sugars) below. I prepare the leaven: one tablespoon of ripe starter mixed with 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water. 

On Friday morning I mix the proofed leaven with water and flour and a bit of salt. Then, throughout the morning, I turn the dough at intervals—developing the gluten proteins. Once stiff dough relaxes into airy, smooth dough. Then, the dough rests. Rest allows time for the flavor of the bread to develop, its sour tang mellowing into rich creaminess. 

By mid-afternoon, I’m ready to bake. I place the bread in earthenware cloche or Dutch oven (to simulate the high heat and moisture of an industrial bread oven). About halfway through baking, when I remove the lid from the cloche, it’s the moment of truth. Has the bread risen? Has the latent potential of the yeast delivered? Will the bread yield a light texture and delicate crumb? Has the crust browned and carmelized in spots? 

There are several ways my Friday habit of baking bread is relevant to our spiritual lives.

The habit of baking bread slows me down. Baking bread takes all day. Were I to rush the folding process, the bread wouldn’t rise. Were I to skip the resting, the flavor wouldn’t develop. In our on-demand society where we expect instant results, baking bread helps me learn the slower rhythms of God’s grace. Mix, fold, rest. Inhale, exhale. 

The habit of baking bread reminds me I’m embodied. Baking bread requires my senses—sight, smell, feel, and, of course, taste. When I first started this habit of baking bread I relied on a recipe, eyeing the clock, trusting the authority of expert bakers. Now, I rely on feel. Different days bring different temperature and different humidity which can mean more or less kneading or resting. I must pay attention to what I see, smell, and feel. And I remember that I am an embodied part of God’s material world. As baker and writer, Kendall Vanderslice puts it, “Baking allows me to know so intimately the magnificence of God’s material world.”

The habit of baking bread teaches me to trust. Although I’ve been baking bread regularly for four years, still I am amazed at how such simple ingredients are transformed into spectacular loaves. Each time I bake I wonder, ‘Will this tiny, unseen yeast really work?’ Each time I reach into a hot oven to remove the lid from the cloche, I wonder, ‘Will it have risen?’

My (almost) weekly habit of Friday bread baking also helps me appreciate the church’s yearly habit of Good Friday—this day on which we remember Christ’s death on a cross. 

Good Friday slows us down. In a world where it’s easy to recite the Christian truism “Jesus died on the cross for my sins,” Good Friday slows us down to consider the agony and pathos of Jesus’s trial and death. 

Good Friday reminds us that Christ was embodied. As the Church considers Jesus’s death on the cross, his embodied-ness is undeniable. And his embodied-ness is central to the message of his Passion. As Peter writes, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 3:24).

Good Friday teaches us to trust. As the sun set on that fateful Friday, faithful disciples removed the lifeless body of Jesus from the cross, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb. The cave was sealed. Saturday dawned and all was still. The teacher was gone. Their friend was dead. Hope was lost. 

Until Easter morning, when the lid was lifted and Jesus had risen. The bread of life was alive. He was enough to feed a hungry world.