Prosphera odds and ends

I got the recipe from the church.  I have been meaning to start trying to make Prosphora for a long time now but just haven't done it. One of the stumbling blocks was a twenty minute kneading.  That worked all right and it made some beautiful little loaves. It is work and gives your shoulders and wrists a good workout. I was certainly ready to go to bed by the time dinner was finished.

 It made 5 small loaves (or two large ones).  A couple came out well enough so I thought we could use those at the chapel.  I had some problems with the centers dipping in. I think that was about heat as I have a new oven and had lowered the temperature to 340 degrees rather than the 350 degrees called for,  thinking my oven is a little hot. I think it needs that heat to raise it.   I also may have pressed too hard on the bread stamp and maybe twisted it a bit in the pressing.  

I have been in email contact with our church Prosphora organizer.  

She had said initially if it fails feed it to the chickens. 

But also after I had sampled one of the loaves with a sunken middle to see what the texture and moisture content was like she cautioned, if a person eats it they should eat it in the context of Blessed Bread, in other words no butter, jelly or anything on it.  Eat it only for spiritual benefit. Its purpose is to be Blessed and be part of the life of the church not just baked bread. So I would take that to say avoid eating it casually.  There was a little struggle in my mind as to the care of that which was made with prayer and its context with the "chickens".  I think all scraps should be disposed with the same care.  In otherwords, don't throw failures in the trash, throw them outside. The Ravens would get a great deal of benefit from it or those coyote pups that keep ranging around.  (I don't have chickens.)

Also she said that the Priest can use loaves that are not as beautiful as long as the stamping is evident and the bread is good.  Many loaves like this are used for Pre-Sanctified Liturgy and Blessed bread as well and not used for Communion.

The loaves can be frozen so that solves being at distance as in my case.

Care should be taken to get them to the church in that condition as they are stock piled to use as needed and especially used in heavy and generous use during Pre-Sanctified Liturgies and the Paschal Season.

I sent pictures of the loaves to the Head Altar Server and this was his response:

This was all very interesting!  In terms of seals themselves, all of those pictured are either perfectly acceptable or better than that.  No slight tilting in a seal would ever be considered deal-breaking for a good loaf.  In terms of the dips, if the dip on the others turns out to be like this one that you cut, we're OK.  The dips I'm more familiar with betray an air-pocket under the center of the seal, in what would be the very Lamb, and that IS a deal-breaker.  But your 'dippy' loaf shows no air-pocket; it's just got a gentle slope to the contour, and if that's all that's 'the matter' w/ the others like it, then there's no problem.  They'd be fine both for a lamb loaf and for blessed bread.

So this has been the saga of the Prosphera adventure.  I would make them again.  A good physical prayer.

I ordered some stamps from Mt. Athos for the bookstore and used one of those.

Post Script....
The solution on the dip that occurs in the bread seems to be that after the bread has been stamped and picked up to place on the baking sheet, if you round it up with your hands and make it a little smaller on the sheet rather than leaving it spread out, it seems to rise perfectly.