Baking Taught Me to Slow Down and Rise Up

I learned other valuable lessons, too, like how to ask for help and how to focus on one thing at a time — and all of it helped my multiple sclerosis (MS).

For years, I bombed at baking. My cakes fell, my cookies crumbled, and my bread never rose. I read numerous cookbooks and watched countless YouTube videos, but I just couldn’t get it right. What made the situation even worse was that my late grandmother Wilma had excelled at baking, especially bread, and she was famous all over my hometown of Asheboro, NC, for her tender and buttery loaves. For the sake of her legacy, I had to do better.

After I retired from my job in 2017 to focus on my health, I suddenly had the greatest advantage in the world — time. For someone who had lived with MS for over 20 years, more time was everything.

It meant I didn’t have to rush, and I could take a simpler and more thoughtful approach to baking, starting with bread. People had been baking it for centuries. In fact, a petrified loaf had been found among the volcanic ruins of ancient Pompeii in Italy! Baking couldn’t be impossible, even for me.

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Breaking (with) bread

Yet again, my efforts failed. I tried dozens of recipes, but every promising mound of dough would rise only slightly and collapse again after the second rise. I’d put it in the oven out of desperation, only to watch the sad, soft little lump harden into a flat brick.

But one day in the spring of 2023, as tears pricked my eyes, I had an epiphany.

Wilma had been my hero, but as I suddenly recalled, things didn’t always come easily for her. While she served homemade bread or rolls with our Sunday dinner, sometimes there weren’t any extras for me to take home. “Sorry,” she would say, without batting an eyelash, “but that second batch just didn’t work out.”

If Wilma gave herself a break from time to time, surely I could, too.

Be patient, I told myself.

I realized then that I was taking on too much — trying different recipes for yeast bread, then turning to recipes for rolls and sometimes fancy twist breads, all within a matter of days. But when thumbing through an old cookbook of Wilma’s, I found a master recipe for bread, one that could also be used for rolls and sweet breads! Eureka! And this was just the beginning.

Rising above difficulty

Next, I did something I had never done before: I asked for help.

A good friend from my church, Pieng, who had grown up in Hong Kong, was training to be a pastry chef. On a whim, I asked if she’d be willing to come over and help me bake bread, and to my great delight, she agreed.

Pieng diagnosed my problem right away. “You have a cold kitchen,” she said. And that was true. Due to the flashes of heat brought on my MS, I kept my house cool year-round. So, trying to let my dough rise on the countertop, as most recipes advised, was counter-productive.

Pieng taught me a quick little trick — filling a pan with boiling water, putting it on the lowest rack of my oven, and then letting my dough rise on the rack above.

For the first time, my dough rose to magical new heights, and the final result was the loaf of my dreams.

Pieng recommended other steps that saved time and effort, such as using a scale and weighing my flour rather than scooping it out cup by cup, which left a wide margin of error that could have been a factor in my previous failures.

And instead of kneading dough by hand, she recommended using a stand mixer, which helped improve the texture and density of the dough. Both of these steps did far more than help my baking. They also reduced the effort that sometimes led to crushing MS fatigue.

One recipe at a time

Now that I’ve finally mastered the basics of bread, I feel more confident tackling recipes for other kinds of baked goods, such as cakes, pies, and cookies.

Right now, I’m trying to make the perfect sugar cookie for Easter — crisp yet buttery with pastel frosting. I’ve yet to find just the right recipe, but I’m sure enjoying the tasty quest!

Baking is an adventure, I’ve learned, and not all attempts work out the first time or even the second or the third. But I do far better if I concentrate on one item at a time.

Lessons in patience

However, the benefits of baking are far more than gustatory. My journey has yielded valuable lessons in patience, which are helping me cope with my MS.

First, I’ve learned to be more patient with myself, even outside the kitchen. For example, I used to try to accomplish all my errands — going to doctor’s appointments, the grocery store, the bank, and the post office — all in one day. But now, I go easy on myself and do one thing at a time.

The same goes for chores around the house. I don’t overload myself with laundry and cleaning all in one day. I do smaller loads of wash more frequently throughout the week. I clean the bathrooms one day and the living room the next.

Stretching out the work extends my energy and helps me make the most of my day by leaving me with the strength to walk in my garden and count my daffodil blooms in the late afternoon.

Being more patient with myself has also helped me be more patient with others, especially the person who’s beside me every day. My husband is far more easygoing than I am, and I’ve learned that when I ask him to do something, I shouldn’t expect it right away.

For example, I recently asked him to repair an old bench, the place where I take a break from working in the garden. I’m so glad that I didn’t nag when it seemed like he was procrastinating. I soon found out that he had decided the old bench was beyond repair, and he was actually designing a new one that would be ready in time for spring.

I’ve been able to adopt this attitude with strangers, as well. In the past, I easily became flustered when things didn’t go smoothly during my monthly infusions of MS medication. With so many people coming for their own treatments, delays are very common, and sometimes, I’d get frustrated if I ended up having to wait.

But now, I’ve started using the extra time to read or chat with other MS patients, which improves my mood and decreases my anxiety. I’m also much more appreciative of the nurses who administer life changing care to so many people each day.

The takeaway

It’s no coincidence that success in baking bread depends on a good “rise.” By developing and exercising patience, I’ve “risen” in my own way, and I’m enjoying the grace and serenity that it’s brought to my life and how it helps me cope with MS.