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Attention bakers � I need your help!

Can anyone offer some advice? I encounter two recurring problems when baking:

1) The designs I stamp onto my prosphora and lytia loaves tend to disappear by the time the baking is done. Why? How can I stop this?

2) The dough for my prosphora doesn�t rise very much, and the end result is that the loaves are rather �flat� and the bread is crumbly. Is it �understood� that you must add sugar to the yeast, or is there some way around this?

Thanks!

Doamne Iisuse Hristoase, Fiul lui Dumnezeu, miluieste-mă pe mine păcătosul.

Kobzar,
My wife says that either the water temperature is not correct, or the yeast has expired, or the temperature of the location where the dough has to rise is too cool. Also make sure you cover the dough when it rises.

She doesn't bake prosphora, but she does bake regular bread all the time. And it's great!!!

I offer a link as well:

http://www.prosphora.org/

Try changing your yeast and flour to begin with. Certain flours and yeasts do not work well together. I have a list of what works and what does not.

Also, I find that if kneed the portion before stamping, and then bake a little bit thereafter it helps. I get two rises out of my dough before I put it through the stamping part.

I hope this helps.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

I use:

Hogkins Mill 100% Wheat Flour
Fliechman's Yeast. (The regular kind, not the super-rise kind)
Water.

After basically taking 9 cups of flour and blending it with my water / dissolved yeast mixture, i then pull it out and knead it profusely.

Then, make your loaves and then put them in the oven (cold oven) for an hour to proof. Now, here's the secret step: I also put in a 2" deep baking pan full of warm-to-hot water on the rack below the rack my bread is sitting on. That warmth helps your proofing dough to rise very nicely.

You'll find that it rises very nicely ... once you're done, stamp them with your seal and then bake.

---The trick is that 2" deep baking pan full of water on the rack underneath - give that a shot and see how your prosphora baking goes.

I just tell my bread, cake, etc lots of jokes while they bake. They always get a rise out of it.

Christ is Risen!

I realize that the most effective way has been to knead the dough, over and over, to get rid of air pockets.

What I would like to know is if anyone has had success using a bread maker or a high-powered Kitchen Aid? Does this work?

Thank you,
Deacon El

I knead mine in the big Kitchen Aid until the kitchen aid starts to bog down, and then I put the dough on the table and knead it some more...

I have not heard anyone for other than for the kneading portion of the baking ever have any luck with any of the bread making devices made for home use. I do all my by hand and the results are pretty consistent.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Thank you to everyone for your advice. Sadly, I didn't have an opportunity to do any baking in time for Pascha. I may give things a try this weekend. I'll keep you posted.

Хрїстосъ воскрεсε изъ мєртвыхъ, смεртїю на смεрть наступи, и грωбнымъ животъ дарова!

1) The designs I stamp onto my prosphora and lytia loaves tend to disappear by the time the baking is done. Why? How can I stop this?

There is a prayer for prosphora bakers to pray prior to baking:

O Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of the Eternal Father, who has said with Thy most pure lips: Without me you can do nothing. O Lord, my Lord, with faith I accept your words; help me a sinner, to prepare the Bread of Offering, that the works of my hands may be acceptable at Thy Holy Table and may become through the operation of Thy Holy Spirit the communion of Thy Most Pure Body for me and for all Thy people. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirirt. Amen.

For the litiya breads, I figure you are using 2 biscuit or cookie cutters to cut 2 different sized discs after rolling out the dough to a thickness of less than about a quarter inch.

. Preheat your oven, and don't let a lot of time lapse from the time you stamp the dough until the time you put your breads in the oven.

. Use the seal on the smaller of the two discs, making sure to get a clearly etched seal before putting the two pieces together.

. Moisten the larger disc top, place the smaller one on top of it, then use a wooden skewer or toothpick to poke holes around the seal, down through the dough to the bottom of the lower disc.

The water seals the 2 discs together, along with the toothpick holes. The toothpick holes also puncture air pockets which can cause the dough to rise too much.

The dough's consistency, the oven temperature, etc. can all cause success or failure. My wife has a knack for baking, and says I treat the dough like a punching bag when I try to knead it myself. I guess you could say she is "at one with the dough", because she knows what needs to be done in order to bake breads, cakes, cookies, etc. The only baked item she avoids is pie crust.

Purists will say you must knead the dough by hand, but a Kitchen Aid mixer does a superior job of kneading the dough. So, if you work around purists, just be discrete and don't tell them. The breads finished in the correct form are what really matters. My wife says she will be glad to talk by phone with you if you want a more direct discussion.

Jim Sprinkle
Mesa AZ