Welcome to The Joy of Baking, with your host Julie Smith. Just kidding. This is actually Live at 5 through the Pearce Church FB page. But, as many of you know, in addition to what you typically see me doing at church, I love, love, LOVE to be in the kitchen. And baking is my favorite activity in the kitchen. Some of you have actually asked if I would do an online tutorial on bread. So I thought, hey...we’re bored, we have some extra time, why not mash up a daily devotional with a little bread making?
So here goes nothing...tonight I’m going to be showing you how to make the simplest, most delicious dough. I use it for pizza, but you can also bake it up as a table loaf to serve alongside soup or pasta. The best part about this dough is that it’s literally only 4 ingredients and you don’t have to knead the dough at all! I’ve tried probably half a dozen different pizza dough recipes over the years and this is, by far, the simplest AND the most successful. Here’s what you’ll need:
3 ¾ c all purpose flour (maybe show how to scoop/level flour)
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon active dry yeast
1 ½ c water
So you need a medium-sized bowl and all you’re going to do is combine these four ingredients. Dry first (stir flour, salt, yeast together), then mix in the water until there aren’t any dry streaks. Kind of stir it into a ball-shape and then cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Leave it out somewhere where you won’t entirely forget about it and come back in about 18 hours. (I usually start this the evening before the supper I want to eat it.)
Here’s what the dough will look like 18 hours later:
And here’s what your loaf can look like after baking:
I’ll post baking instructions below after the video is finished in case you want to see the project to its full fruition! :)
If you have any prior experience with bread baking, you’ll notice two things that are a bit out of the ordinary with the recipe I just shared: the first is the amount of time it takes. It’s largely hands-off, but it takes a long time. The second is the miniscule amount of yeast I used.
YAY YEAST!
A tiny amount of yeast is incredibly powerful when it’s given lots of time. And as Christians and the Church, we can, forgive my pun, rise or fall over long periods of time.
The Church has been in existence for 2,000 years now, give or take. The Church has grown and spread and permeated the world in innumerably noticeable, positive ways. But lots of those ways have happened in small, barely-measurable increments. They’ve happened overnight, in the dark, in obscurity. I think of George Muller, the founder and sustainer of orphanages in 19th century England and who never asked for any help or donations. I think of David Brainerd, a missionary to Native Americans in the 18th century, whose extensive ministry and work was unrecognized until the posthumous publication of his journals. I think of Florence Nightingale, who was a strong proponent of the love of Christ shown through active love and care for others. These people worked as Jesus said in Matthew 6, in the secret--and their yeastiness, while largely unacknowledged in its day, is now recognized for what it accomplished and set into motion.
---
BAD YEAST!
On the other hand, yeast, at its essence, is really a fungus. It has the capacity to enrich, or ruin, a large batch of whatever it enters. The Bible actually doesn’t have a whole lot of good to say about yeast. OT references to yeast are almost entirely devoted to the sacredness of unyeasted bread--reminding the Israelites of the haste in which they fled Egypt during the exodus.
In the NT Jesus puts yeast back on the table! But, the ways He refers to it leaves some things up for discussion:
Under these circumstances, after so many thousands of people had gathered together that they were stepping on one another, He began saying to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops.
I’m sure we can all think of times that the Church, over history, has done more harm than good. We did it then, and do it now by being stubbornly dogmatic, lovers of power, by overlooking the poor and less fortunate.
Matthew 13:33 Parable of the Yeast
33 Jesus also used this illustration: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”
Most of us grew up thinking that the yeast is the hero in this little one-verse parable. That those of us who are Kingdom people spread our yeastiness throughout the world, bringing life and vitality to all around us.
But there are many scholars who hold just the opposite--that yeast here is a metaphor for sin--for weakness. And just a little impurity, a little compromising, a little hypocrisy, especially when allowed to ferment over a long period of time, can overwhelm the good that is already in existence.
CONCLUSION
So, Church family, as you bake your bread this week (or eat your bread), I encourage you to remember the power of yeast and the power YOU have as an agent of God’s Kingdom. The little choices you make now, over the long haul, can have incredibly blessed results. Those of us who are stuck at home feeling that we are accomplishing little can draw real encouragement from that! But, on the other hand....we also must follow our Guide and Master with great intentionality to prevent little granules of sin, of hypocrisy, of fungus from entering our minds and exiting our mouths. Over the long haul, they can ruin an awful lot of good. I challenge you to think carefully about the things you choose to read, watch, and how you engage on social media. A little yeast can go a long way, one way or the other.
<break loaf open>
(In the case of this dough recipe, however, yeast is delicious, and I hope you enjoy the fruits of your minimal labor!)
Jude 1: 20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
22 Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.[f]
24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment