Maundy Thursday Baking
by Mark Ireland

This Lenten season we’ve been learning about the lost art of keeping the Sabbath in our busy lives. In other words, taking time to center ourselves, be fully present, and find holy in our every day.  One of Hamline Church’s small groups has focused on “baking bread” as part of this Sabbath practice and reading the book “Becoming Bread” by Gunilla Norris.

In this video, we invite you to bake bread for Maundy Thursday and demonstrate some of the mindfulness practices described by Norris in her book. Here are some suggestions by Gunilla Norris to provide a deeper meaning for this Maundy Thursday bake rather than it being just a chore that you need to squeeze into your life:

First, set aside a long morning or an afternoon. Turn off the radio and your cell phone. Give yourself the fit of some silence and some uninterrupted hours.

Second, dedicate this activity to something you care about. Examples may be: “I bake this bread for the healing of my family” or “I bake this bread in remembrance of the hungry in the world.” When we pause to dedicate our activities in this way, we bring awareness to a wider dimension; we can sense that we are connected with all of life.

Third, as you collect the ingredients, allow the idea that you are also collecting yourself and bringing yourself to this particular time and place to be fully present. Perhaps you’d like to assign each ingredient a value or associate it with a particular memory related to an important person in your life.  For example, “This water represents my feelings that I fully want to realize and recognize,” or “This water represents my baptism” or “This water brings forward my earliest memory of swimming in the lake with my sisters and my parents.”

Fourth, while you are waiting for the dough to rise or it is baking in the oven, use that time for reflection and prayer.

Finally, the use of the bread for Holy Communion is a natural time for praise, thanks, and closure.

Random Thoughts about the No Knead Bread Recipe
View the No Knead Bread recipe (PDF)

This is what I and others call, “Elemental Bread.”  It is bread that is simple and unadorned: flour, water, salt, and yeast. It is the bread that people have been making and baking for thousands of years. It is a connection to our past, and it is also fuel to carry us forward. Bread is the staff of life

If you are not using a bread pan, there is a high likelihood that the dough will resemble flat bread rather than the round boule that you see at the bakery or on the grocery store shelf.  This does not mean you failed, it’s okay. That flatbread will still taste delicious and it is probably more authentic to what is and was eaten in the Holy Land thousands of years ago, so celebrate your historic Lentiness.

The bread is done when the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees. Although it is tempting to immediately slice it open, you should wait for it to cool. As it cools, the bread will continue to bake. If you cut into it right away, the inside will likely be a little gummy.

If you really want a boule, I suggest adding a little more flour after it’s long 12-18 hour rise. Flour is fuel for the yeast, and so by adding flour and kneading in flour after the long rise, you are giving it more fuel. Then, I’d fold and shape the dough. Here is a link to a video on how to do this, if you want to go down that path….just remember, you’re not entering a baking competition. You are baking bread as a Sabbath practice, which, I think, means letting go preconceived expectations of success or failure.  https://youtu.be/bIb8fC9BdWs.