www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Food - Recipes Guide to Prosphora bakers mistakes

Yes! I have been wanting to try again, but timid. I also wan't my grand children to know how. The love making the breads for Pascha

Mistakes [illumination-learning.com]

Hmm. I thought I saw some Youtube videos somewhere on the process of making them. It was done by somebody in the Coptic Orthodox tradition, but I'm sure it probably might not be that much different from others.

It's a loooong video, though:

Pani Rose, the web site if wonderful! Thank you so much! I think it will be really helpful for the phosphor makers (including me) in our parish.

Thanks for sharing the video.
I've been baking bread for about 50 years. I've done a lot of kneading in those years. I now use my Cuisineart whenever I can. The prosphora recipe our parish uses (total of 5 cups flour, 2 bread, 3 AP, and 1 3/4 C water) fits in my Cuinineart. Once the dough forms a ball, a minute or so, it take about 45 seconds to knead.

Even though I have a good feel for dough, I always use the windowpane test to see if the gluten has developed enough. If it hasn't then I run the machine another 30 seconds or so, check again and that's usually enough. I take a piece of dough no bigger than a walnut, roll it between my palms into a ball and then stretch the edges til I have a section big enough to see if it's windowpaning.

We roll out our dough with a rolling pin. I think this method is shown on the prosphora.org site video. I use the lid from a small saucepan as my cutter for our lambs. Like the individual prosphora, I make the lambs in 2 layers. They're "glued" together by brushing the tops of the bottoms, and the bottoms of the tops with water before connecting them and completely knit together during baking. I use an old ice pick to poke 5 holes in the stamped area.

I've not had the problems addressed in the article you posted Pani Rose, but our weather here is really ideal for basic white bread like a prosphora. In spite of our fog we don't have humidity indoors, and we don't have altitude which affect baking.

I don't feed my yeast when proofing it but that is often helpful and is a good suggestion (#1). For recipes with sugar in them, which of course we're not talking about here, I toss in a tsp or so of sugar when proofing. I keep my yeast in the freezer. I measure out a TB of yeast and let it come to room temp before proofing it.

I bake on silpat type cookie sheet liners. I have a large RubberMaid type contaner in which I store most of my prosphora stuff, the equipment I don't use for anything but prosphora- circle cutters, stamps, silpats, pastry brush, ice pick, sauce pan lid, two tea towels to cover the cookie sheets, one towel to cover the dough during initial rise, and cover the part I'm not working on .

We have had a handfull of bakers in our parish and the one thing that has ever seemed an issue is not letting the dough rise enough before baking. We use a method that starts the baking in a cold oven, so you don't get quite the same oven spring you get with a hot oven. One of these days I'm going to do a batch starting with a hot oven. On the other hand, if it ain't broke don't fix it... the method we use seems to work well.

To test for doneness I do the thump on the bottom like any bread. I do rotate the pans top rack and bottom rack after about 10 mins of baking. We don't let them get brown but they do need to cook thru and I think rotating the racks helps with more even baking, at least in my oven.

Y'all your postings on here especially likeathief is so important.

Next to the Sacraments and sacramental life of a parish, those things we spiritually physically touch, it is one of our greatest mysteries . Our older bakers, from the old countries are passing on, us newbies are scared to death. I remember my first loaf weighed a ton and was tough! I bake really good breads from scratch. Prosphora? That's a different gift! Biggest thing, is getting pass the nerves.

Well, Pani, in my years in the parish the ladies older than I am have not baked prosphora. Nearly all our prosphora has been made by one parishioner who does a bang up job. His picture has been on here and is on our Facebook so you can see he is young and Filipino.

One time when someone else insisted on doing it, the general opinion of bakers in the group after trying to eat the dense, grey, doughy prosphora was that she forgot or killed the yeast, and the amount of baking involved seemed limited as well. Nearly anything by comparison would have been an improvement.

About 6 months ago clergy asked for larger loaves for the Lambs. I've been a back up for the prosphora baking, so at that point we divided up the baking-- I do the Lamb loaves and our regular baker does the individual prosphora. After a number of different trial sizes for the Lamb loaves, clergy settled on the one I use the small pot lid to cut out. Our recipe makes 4 of those sized Lamb loaves and left over dough for about 6 individual prosphora. We freeze all our baked prosphora.

We have such a small parish baking individual prosphora usually can be once a month, when there aren't special services. I bake the Lambs about every 3 weeks depending on the Feasts and if there are 5 Sundays or four. That wouldn't be often enough to get comfortable with it if I weren't already a regular bread baker. People express an interest in learning, but no one presently in the parish has the time to put in to doing it. I allow 3 hours at home and 4 hours in the church kitchen which is cooler and the dough takes longer to rise there. The Lamb loaves are way simpler so need about 20-30 mins less than individual prosphora in the cutting out and assembling step.

Getting the hang of rolling out the dough may have been the biggest challenge for me. I watched our regular baker several times. Now I split the batch into 3 or 4 balls and knead each of them separately after the first rise. Then I begin rolling out using the ball that was the first one I kneaded so it's had the longest time to relax again. I don't knead the dough long after the first rise, just enough to get the air bubbles out.

I use a French rolling pin because it's what I've used for years, but I think my life would be easier for rolling out this job if I had a ball-bearing style rolling pin.

I'm sorry we live so far apart, I'd love to bake together. I'm sure we'd have a wonderful time.

My husband and I have decided to buy a bread maker but I need your recommendations on the best bread maker for phosphora?

If you google "bread maker Amazon" they'll give you their most popluar machines by user's report/recommendation.
Related to prosphora, why would you want one?

If you are afraid of mixing it, use your food processor. Half the battle is keeping the heat of your hands off of the bread. As far as a brad maker for prosphora, it won't work.

Honestly, like someone else said kneading dough is one of the most amazing things you ever do. This past Pascha was the first time I put the grand kids to work making bread. They are 7, 4, & 2. Honestly, the Pascha and nut rolls were the best we ever had. Amazing!

Don't be afraid, just jump in!