The Thing About Kneading

I’m changing my one-year-old son Reid’s diaper in his room when I hear my older two kids bickering in the living room. I secure the fresh diaper and blow a raspberry on Reid’s belly, making his face light up with a grin. Down the hall, my five-year-old daughter, Maggie, screams, “I had it first!” I slide Reid’s pants over his right leg and sing, “Put your right leg in, put your right leg out.” My seven-year-old son, Royce, yells, “No, Maggie! Stop it!” I pull Reid up to stand and whisper, “I’m gonna get you!” He giggles down the hallway toward his beloved “bigs.”

By the time I dispose of the dirty diaper, wash my hands, and walk down the hallway, the sibling squabble I’ve been ignoring has escalated into an all-out brawl, the sight of which stops me dead in my tracks at the entrance to the living room. Blood pours from a cut on Royce’s face onto the throw pillow he is hugging. Maggie howls from atop the coffee table, her face covered in snot and tears. Reid stands in shocked silence, clutching the TV remote. Tension explodes from the base of my skull.

“WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS?” I bellow, clutching my forehead in disbelief.

***

The scent of freshly baked bread filled the kitchen of our tiny rental home. I stood at the kitchen counter, my stomach grumbling, while a six-week-old Royce fussed in the bouncer at my feet. Two weeks prior, after an appointment with a gastroenterologist, I’d removed dairy, soy, and eggs from my diet (and subsequently, my breastmilk) in an attempt to eliminate the blood from Royce’s stool and ease his near-constant tummy ache-induced screaming. I was exhausted. I was starving. And, after standing in the bread aisle at the store reading labels for the better part of an hour, I was determined to make a loaf of sandwich bread I could eat.

The serrated edge of my knife slid easily into the loaf on the cutting board in front of me, but when the knife progressed through the loaf the top of the piece fell apart in my hand. I tried a thicker slice. Same result. Frustrated and hungry, I set the knife down and picked up Royce, whose wimpers had progressed into full-blown wails. Then I snapped a picture of the pile of crumbs and texted it to my dad.

Easy Sandwich Bread. Not so easy.

My dad, who wrote an actual scientific paper on sourdough and is something of a bread expert, had follow-up questions.

How hydrated was my dough? At what temperature and how long was I baking my loaf? What kind of pan was I using? Was I kneading by hand or with a stand mixer?

“You’re overworking your dough,” he finally said. “Stop trying so hard.”

***

I sit cross-legged on the carpet in the hallway between Royce and Maggie’s bedrooms and look between their tear-streaked faces. Aside from the bloody washcloth held tightly against Royce’s lip, the chaos of twenty minutes ago has ebbed. “Did you guys know that when Mommy was a little girl, I didn’t have any brothers or sisters?”

They stare at me, blank-faced.

“I didn’t have anyone to play with at home. I didn’t have anyone to trade chore nights with, either.”

Royce shifts his weight toward the wall next to him and glances at Maggie, who returns my gaze with a calm defiance.

I think I assumed I would someday get over my desire for a sibling. That I would grow up, and move on, and somehow fill the void I felt so viscerally in childhood. But in reality, it’s an ache I feel more acutely as my parents age, as my kids grow up without cousins from my side, and as I watch my friends form friendships with their adult siblings. Looking at my older two children—sitting as far away from each other as they can get in our narrow hallway—I know that I’m burdening my children with my own childhood longing for a sibling and that my pleas are landing on deaf ears. But even in the face of their indifference, I can’t help myself.

Glancing between them, I feel the familiar pang in my chest and hear my voice go up an octave. “Don’t you know how lucky you are to have each other?”

***

Bread recipes vary from simple to complex, but the vast majority begin with the creation of a key protein: gluten. Simply put, gluten formation starts with gliadin and glutenin—the building blocks of gluten that occur naturally in wheat flour. These proteins react with water to form disorganized, jumbled balls of gluten molecules. It is through manipulation, or kneading, that these “balls'' form the long chains of gluten required to give bread structure. Kneading is an integral part of gluten development, acting as a catalyst of sorts, moving the gluten formation chemical reaction forward. Under-kneaded dough will yield an under-developed gluten matrix. It will spread out, and fall back on itself. But over-kneaded dough is brittle and dry, with tough edges.

Overworked dough, when baked, disintegrates.

***

It’s Monday morning, which means school starts at 9:15 instead of 8:15. I’m using the extra hour on food prep and laundry. My kids are using the extra hour to try and kill each other.

I want them to go away and play. Together. I want them to entertain each other and leave me alone. I want to check a few items off of my mile-long to-do list, and every single he-said-she-said interruption makes me want to scream. Isn’t this why I gave my kids siblings in the first place? So they had each other?

Resigning myself to the fact that I won’t actually be meal prepping in peace this morning, I double tap my right Airpod to turn off the podcast I’d been listening to. I turn music on the bluetooth speaker, hand out wooden spoons and measuring cups, and open up the cupboard where the pots and pans live. It’s an invitation for the kids to join me in the kitchen—a way for me to keep a closer eye on their escalating squabbles. But also? It adds some loose structure to their play, which I can’t help but hope will bring them closer together.

***

After trying (and failing) to make Easy Sandwich Bread a handful of times, I moved on to a recipe my dad assured me was fail-safe: No-Knead Bread. The science of “no-knead” bread is a little different. Without kneading to push the gluten-formation reaction to completion, “no-knead” recipes wait twelve to eighteen hours for the slow-moving reaction to complete on its own. And my dad was right. For the first time, I was able to consistently bake bread that survived the slicing stage.

But sometimes (often), I forgot to start bread dough the night before, and found myself bleary-eyed at 4:30 a.m. stirring together flour and water to make dough that would be ready to bake by dinner. Through trial and error, I figured out that if I added a little more yeast and kneaded my “no-knead” dough a little, I could start bread dough at a more reasonable hour and still have fresh bread by dinner.

The trick was in the movement of my palms, I found. It was less like a slap—the way the stand mixer smacked pizza dough around the bowl—and more of a steady-pressured shove with the heels of my hands. There was a rhythm to it. A push, then a pull and fold, that incrementally changed the feel of the dough in my hands.

***

The kids bicker at my feet, squabbling over play kitchen food and saucepans. I scrape bread dough onto the floured butcher board in front of me and ignore the urge to interfere in their arguing. I grab a fistful of flour and sprinkle it over the dough, then start to knead. At first, the dough sticks to my hands—filling my nail beds and pulling at the invisible hairs on my knuckles—but with each push and pull it sticks a little less.

More than anything, I want my kids to get along. I want them to see each other as the gift I intended the three of them to be to one another. I want the ties between them to be strong and resilient, like a well-formed gluten matrix. But I can’t make my kids be grateful for one another. I can’t even pressure them into liking each other. And, like the dough in front of me, there’s a good chance that the more I force the formation of their bond, the worse the result will be.

The dough is soft and pliable in my hands now, indicating that my work here is done. Dusting my hands on my apron, I form the soft dough into a round loaf, then pinch the seam underneath. I set the loaf onto a piece of parchment paper and think about how both bread baking and parenting require me to take a leap of faith. To control what I can, to hold the outcome loosely, and hope for the best.

I set the loaf in the preheated dutch oven as Maggie asks Royce what he wants to order at her restaurant. He asks for a burger, then offers Reid a bite of a plastic croissant from the playroom kitchen. Reid smacks his lips and they all laugh in unison.

Minutes later, Royce hurts Maggie’s feelings and Reid hits Royce in the nose. But the sound of their laughter lingers, mixing with the smell of baking bread. The loaf I pull out of the oven thirty minutes later is a long way from the intricately scored sourdough loaves my dad makes, but when I slice into it hours later the slices hold their shape, which is really all that matters.

Cara Stolen is a ranch wife and work-at-home mama of three who lives in rural Washington state. An avid runner and outdoor enthusiast, she loves exceptionally early mornings, pushing the limits of an acceptable day hike, and backpacking or horse packing with her husband, Levi. She believes words have the power to buoy us through the hardest of times, and hopes to make other mothers feel seen with hers. You can find more of her work on her website and Substack.

Photo by Jennifer Floyd.

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