Weekly Breadcrumb is a weekly series where I look back on what baking has taught me, shown me, or reminded me over the previous week. A lesson, or gift, I have received from baking.
Making bread teaches me the importance of patience, probably almost every time I bake. Patience to wait for the starter to be ready, for the dough to rise, for the bread to bake, for the bread to cool…All of it an exercise that seems to be especially challenging for me.
This week, I had to practice patience around wanting to bake, but having to wait. On one morning that I started making cinnamon raisin bread, I realized we were out of raisins. I had a vision of driving out to the grocery store at 7 a.m. to get raisins, but decided that the raisins would just need to wait. This was a rare instance where I was looking out for my energy and my sanity. So, I made the bread without the raisins, accepted it, and moved on. The bread was not very good. Oh well!
I also would have liked to have made some gingerbread cookies, but this week was tiring and I already felt overwhelmed. So, I practiced patience: wait until the weekend. I made the dough for the gingerbread today, when I had more time and energy to do so.
It’s hard for me to hold off on the things I want to do, but making the right decision usually pays off. And making the wrong decision will come back to haunt you. When you make bread, if you choose to be impatient, most times you’ll end up with a loaf of bread that doesn’t turn out very well. For example, I also made sourdough bread this week, and before I began, I could tell the sourdough starter was not super active. I made it anyway – and the bread did not rise as well as it could have, had I waited like I should have.
Patience is a virtue, right? I’m working on it every day!
love how this applies to anything 🙂