Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

baking

Getting my hands dirty

Yeast bread and I have a love-hate relationship in that I love to eat it and hate to make it, although I’ve gotten decently good at pizza dough over the last couple of years.

On Thanksgiving, I wrestled once again with the family recipe for sugar-coated donut-type treats and rolls. A month or so ago, I tried (and sort of failed) at homemade cinnamon rolls. I want to try an actual loaf or two of bread but I’m terrified I will spend time, ingredients and effort for something that turns out inedible.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI finally took a page out of my husband’s cooking manual (ha ha — that sounds like I ripped a page out of a cookbook or something. I wouldn’t dare!) and read the introduction to yeast breads in The Fannie Farmer Baking Book, a wedding gift from my husband that I thought was sweet at the time but should have rejected as sexist. (Just kidding, honey! I really do love it.)

I didn’t learn a lot of homemade baking or cooking in my growing up years, so Fannie Farmer by Marion Cunningham has become my mentor and tutor. As usual, she didn’t fail me, and I almost, almost believe that I can make a good yeast bread.

With the pizza dough, I’ve taken the easier road by mixing it in the stand mixer, and I’m convinced this is the “secret” to my pizza dough success. Because if yeast bread fails me in any other recipe, I blame myself because I don’t have the experience or guidance or intuition to know when the dough is ready.

Then I read this from the baking book:

Electric equipment can be helpful in kneading doughs, although I still prefer the experience of working doughs by hand. Beginning cooks particularly will miss learning by feeling, literally getting in touch with the dough.

In other words, I’m gonna have to get my hands dirty. I’m going to have to try and fail and try again next time. And if I’m not in there, working the dough with my hands, I won’t get a feel for when it’s just right.

As with life. Ministry. Work. Parenting.

In all of these things, I have to get in there and do the work myself. I can’t read about it. Or let someone else do it. Or buy it pre-packaged. I have to get my hands dirty. To try and fail and try again until I get a feel for how it works and where I can tweak and add and change to fit the environment I’m in. Only someone who is in the mix can notice the subtle changes and readiness of the bread.

This is what I will think about the next time I’m up to my elbows in yeasty dough, kneading the life out of it, willing it to rise.

Because there will be a next time.

Gluten-free baking: a lesson in holiness

It’s no secret that the state of  my kitchen is usually such that a health department inspection would net me some violations.

My sink is full of dirty dishes. There’s food on the floor. And apparently I’m supplying an ant colony with its winter rations. (Side note: My daughter wants to watch A Bug’s Life. I’m afraid she will start to sympathize with the ants. The dilemmas of parenthood are endless.)

I clean; I’m just not always regular about it. Occasionally it shames me, but I try not to let it bother me too much.

Last week I made cookies for a family who is dear to us. The mom — we’ll call her Dawn because that’s her name — offered to watch our two kids plus her two kids by herself so my husband and I could go to the senior banquet at the seminary. I should also note that her husband is graduating, and they were unable to attend the banquet because her hubby was out of town. Sacrifices, people, are a beautiful thing.

This family is so inspiring. A couple of years ago, a diagnosis of Celiac Disease, forced them into a gluten-free lifestyle, which is easier now than it used to be but still not easy. Dawn has had to educate herself on gluten and all the possible traces of gluten in products. She consults a book for new and unfamiliar products. She calls the company if she can’t find the information in the book. She’s amazing. And her husband — he doesn’t have to eat gluten-free for health reasons, but he does because he loves his wife and daughters and doesn’t want to make them sick. Again, the sacrifices.

Back to the cookies. I have prepared food for this family before, but baking took it to a whole new level. I’ve even made gluten-free brownies before. These cookies, flourless peanut butter cookies, were not billed as gluten-free, per se, but after consulting with Dawn, I got the go-ahead to make them for the Friday night babysitting extravaganza.

The final product

This would be no ordinary cookie baking event. I scrubbed down the mixer from top to bottom. I used separate wash rags for cleaning. I cleaned each utensil, each measuring cup before I used it on the off chance that I forgot to wash it the last time I used it. Separate spoons. Washing hands. Keeping the kids away from the ingredients. A new jar of peanut butter so no trace of gluten from PB&J sandwiches would cross-contaminate. I focused solely on the task at hand, trying not to touch anything else in the kitchen or do any other household chores while I was in the cookie-making process.

I took care to keep the cookies free of any trace of gluten for love of my friends.

And I wondered if I cared as much about keeping my life free of contaminants for the love of Jesus, who calls me to purity and holiness.

I don’t have to earn my holiness. I never could.

I do have to work at it, though.

While making the cookies, I couldn’t cut corners. For my friend, it’s not that she can’t have a lot of gluten it’s that she can’t have ANY gluten. With sin, it’s not that God wants people to have only a little sin in their lives. He wants us to have NO sin in our lives.

It’s not a perfect illustration because maybe we won’t ever totally eliminate sin in our lives. The death of Jesus, however, makes it possible for us to be with God even though we have sinned and do sin.

In response, we work to eliminate sin in our lives so we can present ourselves pure before Him. His grace fills in the gaps where we fail.

All that from a batch of cookies. (Which were delicious, if I do say so myself. Despite the fact that I am NOT a food photographer.)

Anybody hungry for holiness?