Magical Bread Baking
I’ve been baking loaves with magical intention several days a week now for the last couple years and it’s become a huge source of abundance and joy in my life. I’m to share my bread making practice and base recipe with you and hopefully inspire you to start turning flour into loaves.
What’s magical about baking bread? Well, first of all, anything you do can be magical. But there are some specific reasons why bread making is a powerful practice.
What’s magical about baking bread?
For one, making your magical intentions a cornerstone of your diet can have a profound impact on your wellbeing. We don’t always have time for big rituals or out of the way spiritual practice so infusing homemade staple foods intentionality keeps the power of your will circulating through your daily life.
There’s not very much hands on time required for making bread, it’s mostly giving the yeast time to eat sugar and make bubbles. Bread making gives us the opportunity to work with time in our magic which is a critical skill for any witch. While capitalist culture can make us feel like there’s never enough time and time is working against us, I love to counter that with practices that remind me that time is a powerful ally when we choose to work with it. With bread making as well as other practices like gardening, drying clothes outside, working with moonlight, making tinctures and infusions- you set an intention, put it into action and let time take over to complete your goal. I find this to be really grounding.
Bread making is ritual of alchemy and transformation. you can think of it as turning flour, yeast and salt into gold. I can’t afford to eat freshly baked, organic nutritious bread if I don’t make it myself. A typical loaf at my local grocery store is at least $6 whereas when I make it the same loaf is $1.6). I get to eat like a queen even though I’m a peasant.
In cultures that cultivate it, wheat and grains has long symbolized the health not only of the land, but of the communal ties of those who live upon it. our connection to the earth and each other and baking bread extremely grounding. Grounding is an important practice for witches because it helps to connect us with the earth and our own physical bodies, which are in a sensual relationship with the animate everything around us.
Speaking of the senses, the smell of freshly baking bread is magical by itself. It can lift your mood in an instant and make your home feel cozy and welcoming.
Humans have been baking bread for thousands of years. Although the ingredients might be different, the act of kneading and baking dough into bread could be something you have in common with some of your ancestors, giving you a window of connection to them through the past.
Bread making involves all four of the classical elements: water, earth, fire, and air. Water is necessary to activate the yeast and to hydrate the flour. Earth is represented by the flour itself, which comes from the ground. Fire is used to bake the bread, and air is incorporated into the dough during the rising process. In this way, bread making can be seen as a holistic practice that connects us with the natural world and the elements around us.
The Power of Bread in Mythology and History
Bread has been a staple food for humans for thousands of years. Evidence of bread-making dates back to ancient civilizations in Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In ancient Egypt, bread was a staple food for both the rich and the poor, and it was often used as a form of payment for labor. In Greece, bread was a staple food and was often given as an offering to the gods. In ancient Rome, bread was a symbol of power and wealth, and the government regulated the price and quality of bread to prevent riots.
Bread has played a role in many mythologies throughout history. In the Christian tradition, Jesus is said to have divided loaves of bread to feed the masses. In ancient Greek mythology, Demeter was the goddess of grain, agriculture, and bread-making. The bread was considered so sacred that prehistoric European shrines often had ovens as their principal feature including the temples to Inanna in Sumeria,
Some deities associated with bread include:
Demeter (Greek)
Annapurna (Hindu)
Dugnai (Slavic)
Sif (wife of Thor)
Lugh (Celtic)
Isis (Egypt)
Inanna (Sumeria)
Nidaba (Mesopotamia)
Jesus (Christianity)
Fornax (Roman)
Today, bread-making is enjoyed as both a practical and a spiritual practice. It allows us to connect with our ancestors, who have been making bread for thousands of years, and to infuse our food with intention and magic.
THE RECIPE: Abundance Bread
Bread making can be really intimidating, there’s a lot of different ways to make bread and some of them are quite complicated or require special tools. The following abundance bread recipe I’m about to share with you is really simple and once you get it down you can start adding your own intentional variations to and making this spell your own. let’s get to baking!
The Ingredients and corresponding magical properties:
whole wheat flour: nurturing and grounding, prosperity, the harvest, protection
rolled oats: stability, fortitude, endurance
yeast: activating, action energy
salt: protection - stabilizes the yeast by slowing the amount of water it can react with and givings structure to the loaf by tightening the gluten structure and strengthening the dough
olive oil: peace, calming, balance, wisdom
THE BASE RECIPE:
Activate the yeast. Add 1TBS each of dry active yeast, salt and sugar (I use maple syrup or brown sugar) to a large bowl. Mix in 2 cups of hot but not boiling water. I use the hottest water from my tap. Allow the mixture to activate for 10 minutes (if you forget about it and it goes a little longer that’s okay).
Add your bulk. Add 1 cup of rolled oats and about 4.5 cups of whole wheat flour to the yeast/water mixture. When you get the hang of this you won’t need to measure the flour anymore (at least I don’t). You can always also just start with a couple cups and keep adding more until the dough stops sticking to your fingers.
Knead your intention into the dough. Focus on your intention, providing abundance and nourishment for your home through this delicious alchemy (or whatever your intention is). To knead the dough simply fold the ball over in on itself, turn 90 degrees and repeat. You should knead for at least a minute but after that it’s up to you how long you want to knead for, I never knead for more than 5 minutes, you will get a feel for when there is a good amount of resistance in the dough.
Drizzle the dough with olive oil.
Cover with a damp cloth and leave out at room temp for 20-45 minutes.
Knead again. You don’t have to do steps 5-6, you can just knead once and allow it to rise but I find that taking a break and coming back to it for a little more kneading helps the olive oil seep in and improves the texture of the bread.
Cover with a damp cloth and leave out at room temp for 3-7 hours. I put a range there because we all need to work our bread practice into our schedule, anything less than 3 hours and your finished bread will be very dense. If you leave it out much longer than 7 hours the dough might fall. Experiment with what works for you and your schedule!
Divide dough. I typically will make 6 medium sized round loaves from this recipe but it also makes 2 sandwich loaves if you brake in a bread pan or 2 large rustic loaves if you bake in a free form pan, or 12 mini slider rolls. I recommend sticking with the 6 round loaves if you’ve never done this before and then branching out.
Knead each dough ball individually. You will feel resistance pretty quickly, you only need to knead each loaf for less than a minute each.
Slash vents with your chosen symbols. Use a serrated knife to cut vents into the bread. I typically use this as an opportunity to cut runes with meaning aligned with my intention into the bread.
Cover with a damp cloth and leave out at room temp for 45 minutes to 3 hours
Bake. See directions below for different loaf sizes.
6 medium sized loaves: 10 minutes at 500F degrees, then without opening the oven lower the temp to 400F and bake for another ten minutes.
If baking 2 large loaves: 12 minutes at 500F, 15 minutes at 400F. DO NOT cut into your large loaves until at least 30 minutes after coming out of the oven, the large loaves especially are still baking on the inside after they come out,
If baking 12 mini slider/dinner rolls: 8 minutes at 500F, 10 minutes 400F.
Recipe Variations: Experiment with your own variations
using 1 cup white flour instead of oats (for love spells, makes the bread more decadent)
raisins or dried blueberries or cranberries and cinnamon
olives, rosemary, sage, thyme
green chillies and cheese
Parmesan, basil, oregano, thyme
sundried tomatos and onions
pesto
poppy seeds
more ways to make bread magical:
make an offering to the local land spirits. leave a little bit of bread on an outdoor altar (either one you set up or a natural one like a rock or stump) and offer gratitude to the land for taking care of you.
sing or speak to the bread as you are kneading it
share with your community! for example, host a full moon feast and provide baskets of bread carves with moons and various thoughtfully chosen toppings.
Conclusion
What is magic? In the deepest sense, magic is an experience. It's the experience of finding oneself alive within a world that is itself alive. - David Abram
Bread making can be a powerful practice in the magical arts. By infusing your dough with magical intention and taking an active role in the transformation of simple ingredients into a nourishing staple, you can connect with your ancestors and the earth while bringing the power of your intentions into your daily life. So next time you bake a loaf of bread, take a moment to appreciate the magic that is happening in your kitchen. And don't be afraid to experiment with different shapes, symbols, herbs, and spices to make your bread baking practice even more magical.
