Sister Marie's Whole Wheat Bread

When my kids were little, I was an at-home mom doing freelance writing for a local paper. We lived out in the country on a dead-end dirt road in a small log-sided 2-bedroom home with a Jotul woodstove. I did a lot of home cooking, to save on grocery/restaurant costs, but also because I loved making sure my family ate healthy food.

I especially loved to bake bread. There is something so relaxing about baking bread. Maybe it is the joy of witnessing that mysterious life that the combination of yeast and just the right temperature of warm water offer.  Perhaps it is the repetitive motion of stirring that yeast mixture with the flour, until the magical moment when it comes together in a ball and you turn it out onto a floured surface to rest. Yes, to rest.  Then there is the kneading, which needs to be steady and strong for a full ten to twelve minutes, to get the dough to that yielding softness that marks its readiness to rise. Greased and covered with a cloth in a draft-free, warm location, it happily rises (or unhappily does not, if the yeast did not have the right temperature of water to do its bubbly thing, or if the kneading did not reach that "I'm ready to rise" softness). And it rises only with time. You cannot rush the making and baking of bread. The world may rush by for others, but bakers of bread must be patient and wait upon the bread (about an hour and a half for the first rising). Then the risen dough must be punched down and shaped into a ball and allowed once again to rest. Yes, to rest. Then shaped into a loaf, gently placed in a greased bread pan, covered with a towel, and set to rise once more in a warm place (another hour and a half). Only then can you tuck it in the oven to bake for about 40 minutes.

I used to put my dough to rise near the Jotul woodstove, and I baked bread once or twice a week. My children loved the bread fresh out of the oven with butter. But it has been years since I lived in that little log-sided home in the country, and the busyness of work and world took me away from my devotion to bread. So it is fitting that I come back to my love of baking bread through Sister Marie's recipe. She was a member of the United Society of Shakers and a life-long baker of breads.

This recipe makes a delicious loaf of bread. I cut the recipe in half, so it would normally make two loaves. I just wanted to make sure I still "had the touch" for baking edible bread, before making a full two loaves. Sure enough, hot out of the oven is one of the best ways to enjoy bread! The wheat flour makes for a dense bread, but very flavorful, with a small amount of molasses providing just the right amount of sweetness. I am not a purist about wheat flour, when it comes to bread, I'll admit. I prefer a slightly lighter loaf, so I intentionally used King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour, which is a perfect marriage for the whole wheat and gives a lighter loaf.

I am grateful to Sister Marie, who went to be with our Lord in 2001, for this recipe which has brought me back to my love of baking bread. The only thing I need now is a Jotul woodstove, and alas, the parsonage does not heat with wood. But the bread will rise, woodstove or no, with a warm spot, draft-free, so I guess I can make do without the Jotul.

I'd like to share with you a poem for which I have no author, as it was given to me by a friend years ago.  If you know the author, please share and I will give credit here.

"Be gentle when you touch bread. Let it not lie uncared for, unwanted. So often bread is taken for granted. There is so much beauty in bread--beauty in sun and soil, beauty of patient toil. Winds and rains have caressed it, and God has born and blessed it. So be gentle when you touch bread."