Baking No-Knead Bread for Your Offerings Is a Practice in Ritual

When I was an elementary school-aged child, my mom, sister, and I spent every morning at my grandmother’s house. Mom would have coffee with Granny while we got ready for school. This was our routine for years that developed out of necessity. Our older sister was in high school and had to be taken to school earlier than we did, so my younger sister and I would get up in the wee hours, bleary-eyed in our pajamas, throw our school uniforms in a plastic bag, and we'd out the door.

This routine continued throughout my life until Granny’s passing, and when I started to live on my own, coffee became a ritual that kept me close to her. So, when I received an email one morning from the Irish Pagan School about offerings centered around setting out coffee for your ancestors, it just made sense for me to start doing. Some of my strongest memories are of sitting on Granny's back porch, watching Good Morning America while she and Mom talked. That's magical in some ways.

This is what Lora O’Brien of the Irish Pagan School calls “minimum viable practice.” In other words: What can you easily maintain in the complicated web of your life?

Many folks on the witchy side of social media are talking about the true mundanity that is the craft lately, and I have to agree. It is in fact work. It is sometimes a chore. It’s a practice that has to be maintained like anything else. And yes, our lives get busy and that’s ok. That’s why it’s important to start small.

What you choose to offer depends on the entities you’re calling on, what you request from them, all that good stuff. I’m almost always calling on Brigid and my ancestors—to thank them for their guidance, to ask for their intercession, to commune with them through various divinatory practice.

When I refresh my ancestors’ coffee, I also refresh my altar to Brigid. (I have also been known to take bread and honey out to the fairy bush in my backyard.) For the most part, I work with what I have on hand: a finger of Irish whisky, the heel of a loaf of bread that needs to be used, a tortilla if that’s all I got. A bread element just feels right for me, especially if I created it myself. I don’t always have time to do this, but I try to do it at least on the fire festival days. Brigid always gets the first slice.

I am no baker, but I’ve made some killer no-knead bread loaves specifically offered to Brigid for all of her wisdom. The physical mundane practice of making the bread means I can pour all of my intention and attention into my practice. Since Saint Brigid allegedly once turned bathwater into beer as one of her miracles, I like to use beer instead of warm water for the yeast blooming part of this recipe that I will detail below. My wife recently got into homebrewing and we made a batch of stout over the winter that is perfect for this.

Below is a recipe card and more detailed instructions. READ THEM CAREFULLY!

If you would like access to this content, you can become a Cairde Bhríde member today at a discounted rate. It helps pay my bills while I continue to look for work, including the food bills for my special cat that has to eat special food for special babies because she’s allergic to tap water. (Just kidding it’s chicken…and maybe her sister.)

Cairde Bhríde members will also have some exciting things in the works this summer after I return from studying abroad!

Grá Mór,

Sam

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