Finally Bread I'm Happy With

I've been trying to make bread during lockdown, and discovered a lot on the way.  I'm pretty happy with the Turkish Flatbread that I made to start with, but have struggled to make a regular loaf that works.

So, along the way, I have discovered Ken Forkish, Peter Reinhart and Richard Bertinet, all of whom have been really helpful - especially Ken Korkish with his stretch and fold method of getting air into the dough.

The other day I searched on the internet for "Best Wholemeal Loaf," and came across an article in the Guardian Newspaper, which sent me looking for Dan Lepard, and through all of these people have found a loaf that works for me.

This is for a wholemeal loaf

• 300ml warm water
• 2 tsp dried yeast
• 1 tbsp brown sugar, any kind.
• ½ a 500mg vitamin C tablet i.e. ¼g, crushed to a powder.
• 225 g Wholemeal flour
• 225 g White Bread Flour
  
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• About 3 Tbs olive oil

Method.

On this occasion I just weighed all the dry ingredients out and put them in my trusty round plastic tub. (It used to contain fatballs for the birds)

I mixed all the dry ingredients together. (Keeping the salt and yeast separate to start with - apparently the salt reduces the action of the yeast. I'm not sure if it made any difference, but I did it anyway).

By the way - the viamin C tablet - that's a new idea that came from the Guardian article.  I could only get orange ones, but we couldn't detect the orange flavour.

Then I added the water and stirred everything up with a spoon until it was a sticky dough.  I might have added a tiny bit of extra water at this point because it was a bit dry.

Then, and I think this is crucial, I left it for ten minutes to get started.

After that I used Ken Forkish's Stretch and Fold and 'Pincer' method - see his video Mixing By Hand.  I added the olive oil at this point a bit at a time, whenever my hand got sticky.  I only did a few of the stretch, fold and squeeze - maybe 4 - and only for a minute or so.

Then I let it rest for 15 minutes and repeated the stretch etc

Then I let it rest for 15 minutes and repeated the stretch etc for a third time

Then I rolled the dough into a rectangle, rolled it up tightly and place seam-side down in a 2 lb loaf tin. I covered the tin with a tea towel and left it for about an hour and a half.  By that time it had risen to almost fill the tin.

There's a test to see if it's risen enough - sprinkle a little flour on the top of the dough and push the dough with your finger.  If it doesn't spring back at all, it's underprooved. If it springs back all the way, it might be over prooved. What you want is for it to almost spring back.

Then I heated the oven to 220 C, dusted the loaf with a little flour, and baked it for 20 minutes and then reduced the temperature to 180 C for a further 20 minutes.

Voila !  I'm sure it can be improved on, but at this stage in my learning, I'm happy.

I'm a creature who likes change

From time to time, we get a bit bored with having our furniture in the same place, so we have a move around.  We just like a bit of variety.

It's the same with my prayer life.  Sometimes I can stick with the same routine for months at a time, but eventually I'll need a break, and I'll look for something different.

At the moment, I'm enjoying looking for prayers that start and end my morning routine.  Here's a set of prayers I like to use at the start:

With what shall I come before the LORD,

and bow myself before God Most High ?

He has told you what is good;

this is what the LORD requires of you:

To do justice,

love mercy

and walk humbly with your God. 

(From Micah 6  verse 6)

Come, God of the poor,

Come, Light of our hearts,

Come, Generous Spirit.

By the glory of your creation around us,

by the comfort of your forgiveness within us,

by the wind of your Spirit blowing through us,

inspire and renew us, so that we come glad to this new day.

(Adapted - from the Iona Community I think)

The Lord is about to pass by:

Lord, have mercy.

Your face, Lord, do I seek:

Christ, have mercy.

Your law is life:

Lord, have mercy.

(From 1 Kings 19, Psalm 27 & Matthew 5)

 

Kyrie Prayers and the importance of memory

In churches like the one I go to, there's always a prayer of confession - expressing regret and sorrow for our failings, both individually and corporately.  I've commented on this quite recently.

Usually there is a prayer that we say together, but sometimes we have what are called 'Kyrie Confessions,' where the congregation respond with the word 'Lord have mercy' to a sentence said by the leader.

I like to think of this form of prayer not so much as a confession of our wayward nature, but of God's unfailing love.  So in my daily prayer, I often compose a Kyrie prayer based on my scripture readings for the day.

Today I was reading a part of psalm 90:

13Turn, O Lord! How long?
    Have compassion on your servants!
¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    and for as many years as we have seen evil.
¹⁶ Let your work be manifest to your servants,
    and your glorious power to their children.
¹⁷ Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
    and prosper for us the work of our hands—
    O prosper the work of our hands!

So from that I arrived at this prayer:

Lord, have compassion on us

Lord, have mercy

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love

Christ, have mercy

Let your favour, O Lord our God, be upon us

Lord. have mercy.

Writing a prayer is a good way for me of allowing the words of holy scripture percolate into my whole being.  As I build up a personal library of prayers from different sources, and ones that I am writing myself, I am discovering how they can be drawn from memory the more I use them.

This works in church as well.  My habit with our regular Sunday morning worship is not to take a service booklet, because by now I know the words by heart.  That helps me to be able to close my eyes if I want to, or to open them and look at our stained glass window, and just be more aware of what's going on.

Prisoner of Hope

I was struck by a phrase in one of the readings from the Bible in our church service today.

Zechariah chapter 9 verse 12 addresses God's people as 'prisoners of hope'

What a strange phrase.  Captive to hope.

What the world needs now is .... well yes, love sweet love ... but sometimes more than that, we need hope. But often, hope is in short supply.  We don't have the resources within ourselves to hope. 

For the person of faith in God, being a captive to hope means, I think, that we are bound to hope, whatever is happening.  It's a precondition of our faith that somehow hope cannot be torn loose from whatever is being faced.  Somehow, faith hope and love are so tied together that like it or not, even believe it or not, we have got to have hope.

It's what drives people to bring about change even when the odds are stacked against them.  It's what made Martin Luther King Jr. able to say "So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream."

Today, whatever you are facing, may you have hope in a change to come

And today, as a world in need of hope, may we see clearly and with joy that we are prisoners of hope.

Song for Today #17

Love and Mercy by Brian Wilson

Very moved watching this video of the man himself - my musical hero.

A fragile and flawed, sometimes broken, but so often beautiful human being who knows the meaning of love and mercy.

My three readings from Holy Scripture today - from the Psalms, First Kings and Matthew's Gospel were all in some way about our prayers for Love and Mercy. (Or in the words that came to me today in my readings - Grace and Pardon, very much the same idea).

Our prayers also include Adoration, Praise and Thanksgiving to God, but much of the time we're simply praying for Grace/Love and Pardon/Mercy.

Love/Grace is to do with all of God's gifts, freely given to us.

Mercy/Pardon is to do with God's covenant love that continues to be offered even when we turn from God.

I was sittin' in a crummy movie
With my hands on my chin
All the violence that occurs
Seems like we never win

Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight
So love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

I was lying in my room
And the news came on TV
A lotta people out there hurtin'
And it really scares me

Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight
Love and mercy to you and your friends tonight

I was standing in a bar
And watching all the people there
Oh, the loneliness in this world
Well it's just not fair

Hey, love and mercy, that's what we need tonight
So love and mercy to you and your friends tonight
Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight
Love and mercy tonight
Love and mercy tonight

Is This What God Wanted ?

I'm reading through the First book of Kings in the Old Testament.

Today, reading about the completion of Solomon's temple.

The temple wasn't Yahweh's idea actually.  King David felt bad about lavishing so much on his own house while Yahweh didn't have a house - just a box with some stone tablets.  So he proposed to Yahweh that he (David) build Yahweh a house.

Yahweh's response was a cool one. He said "Thanks, but no thanks. But I'll tell you what - I promise that your house (as in your family) will continue ruling Israel for as long as you walk in my ways."

For God, it's not about buildings, but people.  God doesn't promise to be in a building, he promises to be with his people. (Exodus 3 verse 12 for starters).

Yahweh relented and allowed that David's son, Solomon would build a house for Yahweh.

So God didn't choose to build a temple, David did.

And God didn't choose the location, David did.

And now it's finished. And Solomon is praying a kind of prayer of dedication.  He makes sure to note that Yahweh is the God of heaven and earth, and not contained in a building, and yet the building's magnificence seems to speak a different message.

When we think now about our churches, it's actually not God's house that we're talking about, let's be clear about that. The most we can say about a church building is that it is the 'House of the People of God.' (a vicar and writer called Richard Giles said that)

a Church building is not something we should be especially attached to, after all God isn't - he's attached to us, and wants us to be attached to him and to others.

Maybe we in the Northern hemisphere have a particular problem.  It's cold a lot of the time, and we like being warm and cosy in our homes, shut off from the rest of the world.  So maybe that leaches into our church life and we prefer the comfort of a church building to being out in the world.

This is especially relevant at the moment as we are SO keen apparently to get back into our buildings.  It almost seems like that's more important than getting to see each other in the same physical space ?

Maybe we could keep all our buildings closed until we no longer hanker after being back inside, and until we find ways of being with each other that transcend the holy hour on a Sunday.

Song for Today #16

The Lord's Prayer

Years ago, my good friend Adrian gave me the sheet music for a sung setting of the Lord's Prayer that was used in the worship at Cranmer Hall (Durham, England) when he was training for ordination.

It's a beautiful arrangement, and there are many versions in Russian.

Here's one, probably the source for the English version I have.

Ochte Nash

Sheet Music for the English version, pretty close to the above.