Making good altar bread

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Maria
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Making good altar bread

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Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

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Barbara
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Re: Making good altar bread

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This Jennifer Hock has done a great deed in what commenters called "troubleshooting" mistakes made when baking prosphora.
Quite a help and encouragement for those hanging back from trying to bake it !
That includes me, of course...

I hope women will read this and be inspired to try, knowing how it should be exactly and what's wrong when the prosphora turns out too tough, too mushy, too everything !

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Priest Antonios
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Re: Making good altar bread

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Thanks for sharing Maria! She shares some great tips.

I was a little surprised that she uses 3 cups of flower for one loaf. That's a lot of flower!

I use this recipe - http://www.prosphora.org/page25.html

It's simple and I've had great success with it. I've used the basic recipe for Greek-style loaves as well, without any problems. The only difference is that I use einkorn flower. Einkorn is a non-modified "ancient grain", that makes fabulous tasting prosphora, which is very good for anyone who is sensitive to gluten.

What recipes does everyone else use?

-Fr Antonios

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Maria
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Re: Making good altar bread

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Priest Antonios wrote:

Thanks for sharing Maria! She shares some great tips.

I was a little surprised that she uses 3 cups of flower for one loaf. That's a lot of flower!

I use this recipe - http://www.prosphora.org/page25.html

It's simple and I've had great success with it. I've used the basic recipe for Greek-style loaves as well, without any problems. The only difference is that I use einkorn flower. Einkorn is a non-modified "ancient grain", that makes fabulous tasting prosphora, which is very good for anyone who is sensitive to gluten.

What recipes does everyone else use?

-Fr Antonios

The recipe at http://www.prosphora.org/page25.html uses Gold Metal Globe bleached white all-purpose flour . It is not acceptable for altar bread because this all-purpose flour contains barley flour, which is not wheat flour. Barley has a higher gluten content than does wheat. In addition, some people are allergic to barley which causes them to have amnesia.

Anther recipe calling for MacArthur All-Purpose White Bleached Flour is used by many in the GOC-K. This brand also contains barley flour. Interestingly, Met. Moses of Toronto has instructed his faithful to use whole wheat flour and to avoid any flour with barley. The white winter grains of whole wheat flour produce a lighter bread than is much better than the red whole wheat flour, which produces a heaver and darker bread.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

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Priest Antonios
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Re: Making good altar bread

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That is interesting Maria, I did not know that it included barley... on top of being bleached. Thankfully we only ever use organic wheat flour and the recipe still works well.

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