A Liturgical Guide to Baking Bread and Praying Through Advent
recipe and prayers included by the lovely Kendall Vanderslice
Advent starts this Sunday and so begins my favorite time of year in our home.
If you’re new to following the Church calendar or maybe you’re never heard of the liturgical year at all, this article by
is the perfect primer so I’ll spare you my own explanation. All you really need to know for what I’m offering up today is that Advent kicks off this Sunday, December 1st and I have a practical and delicious activity for you to embrace this season. Also, I love that practical and delicious are not mutually exclusive.A few weeks ago I had the joy of chatting with
about her story and her latest work Bake & Pray: Liturgies and Recipes for Baking Bread as a Spiritual Practice. While we were talking, I kept thinking how useful this book would be as an Advent practice with my ten year old daughter. We could bake together, wonderful! But even more, I could teach her to pray while we used our hands to make something good. With this idea percolating in my brain and the realization that there was no way I could get Kendall’s episode to your ears before the season started, I asked her if I could share an excerpt to you ahead of the episode drop and she happily agreed. Yay!Below you will find a sampling of a recipe and liturgy woven together as a guided practice. I hope you’ll look through it and decide, as I did, that this is a compellingly beautiful and simple way to set our minds on the season of Advent, to posture ourselves toward rest and delight, and frankly to enjoy delicious bread.
I’m honored to share the following excerpt by
.1A Liturgy for Bread Baking, with Attention to Spiritual Formation
Mise en Place
Begin by gathering your supplies: 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour and ½ cup whole-wheat flour, 1½ teaspoons kosher salt, ¼ teaspoon instant yeast, 1½ cups room-temperature water, a three-quart mixing bowl, measuring cups and spoons, a bowl scraper, plastic wrap or a tea towel, a baking sheet, loaf pan, or Dutch oven, pan spray or parchment paper, and, if you’d like, your Bible.
As you prepare your workspace, also prepare your heart and mind. Ask God to join you in this process of baking bread. Slowly breathe and meditate on these words:
Inhale: Make me to know your ways, O Lord.
Exhale: Teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:4
Mix
As you measure your ingredients, continue this meditative breathing. Feel the texture and temperature of each element between your fingers as you combine the dry ingredients together. Give thanks for the community of farmers, millers, and grocers who have brought these ingredients to your kitchen today. Give thanks for the bakers across generations who have passed down these traditions. And give thanks for the Christians who have clung to the closeness of Jesus in the baking and breaking of bread.
When the time comes to mix your dough, inhale and exhale with each line of the following prayer. Pour the water into the center of the well. With your fingers, slowly pull the flour bit by bit into the watery center. Thicken the water slowly, rubbing out dry clumps of flour that form. Contemplate on how the substances transform within your hands. Continue mixing until all the flour has been hydrated.
Inhale: The Lord will guide you continually;
Exhale: you shall be like a watered garden.
Isaiah 58:11
Cover your mixture with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and step away to a silent place for half an hour to read, pray, or be still in God’s presence. As you do, pray:
God, may I trust that I am in your hands, even when I don’t feel your presence guiding me. Just as I leave this dough to rest, knowing the amino acids must uncoil, you do not desert me but let me rest in preparation for what’s to come.
Stretch and Fold
Uncover your mixture once again and grip one side firmly in your hand. Stretch and fold and contemplate the change that has occurred: water flooding and softening the grain, bursting open its tightly wound but untapped strength. Stretch the side and fold it over the dough; rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat.
As you build both elasticity and strength, pray in this way:
Inhale: Oh God (stretch) who comes (fold)
Exhale: to us (stretch) in bread (fold),
Inhale: do not (stretch) let us (fold)
Exhale: go (stretch and fold).
Repeat 4 or more times, as needed, then cover your dough and let it rest for its long fermentation (8–18 hours). If you need to wait 24 hours or more before shaping, let the dough rest for 4 hours, then place it in the fridge until you’re ready to bake the loaf.
Shape
When your dough is ready for shaping, turn it onto the counter. Marvel at the beauty and strength of your dough, the bubbles that signal new and growing life. Smell the scent of fermentation, tangy and a little bit sweet. As you preshape, rest, and shape your dough through a series of envelope folds, pray these words:
Loving God,
you promise to order my steps
and direct my days,
which is both comforting and infuriating.
As I stretch and fold and direct
this dough, soften me to respond
to the guidance of your hands.
Remind me that I, too,
can cry out: I’m tired!
And you will bring rest.
Amen.
When the dough enters its final 30–60 minute proof, relaxing into its newfound strength, repeat these words:
God, just as I let this dough rest after building up its strength, I ask you to provide the space to rest and live into the strength you’ve built in me.
Bake
When your loaf is ready for baking, slide it into the preheated oven set at 425°. Pay attention to the smell that fills your kitchen in the minutes ahead. Find joy in the creativity of God, who made ingredients with the ability to change in this way and who gave humans the idea to combine them.
While the dough bakes, ask the Lord:
Loving God, in what areas of my life are you directing me right now? Open my eyes to ways you are forming and shaping me. Keep me soft and malleable in your hands, calling me to rest when I’m too tired to go on.
Eat
After your bread has cooled enough to eat, pick it up, breathe in its scent, and take in its beauty and nourishment. Let a smile form as you thank God for the ability to make something so delicious.
Let your eating be a prayer of its own, a sign of your gratitude to God, as well as God’s good gift to you.
Good news! Bake & Pray: Liturgies & Recipes for Baking Bread as a Spiritual Practice is available now. Snag it today before Advent begins on Sunday. My conversation with Kendall comes out in a few weeks and I can’t wait for you to hear her voice share more about how God’s led her to this unique and lovely work.
is a baker, writer, speaker, and the founder of the Edible Theology Project, a ministry that connects the Communion table to the kitchen table. She is a graduate of Wheaton College (BA anthropology), Boston University (MLA gastronomy), and Duke Divinity School (master of theological studies). Kendall is the author of By Bread Alone, We Will Feast, and her most recent work Bake & Pray. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her big-eared beagle named Strudel, where she teaches workshops on bread baking as a spiritual practice.
Excerpted from Bake & Pray by Kendall Vanderslice. Copyright © 2024 by Kendall Vanderslice. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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This is beautiful (and I delicious too, I bet!)