Give us this day our daily bread

As Khouria Frederica Mathewes-Green has said of Lent, "The bread machine runs all day long". A decent bread, if one is not clogging up one's arteries with meats and saturated fats, is a choice food to get through the day. Spread with peanut butter, Earth Balance margarine, lightly salted, or even sprinkled with Cajun seasoning, a slice of bread will hold off hunger until the next meal.

My daughters are fond of the taste of prosphora, the Orthodox communion bread. However, the first recipe I got for it from Father Andrew makes too much for one household. Start with a whole 5-pound bag of flour?? My freezer is already full. I found this recipe in the book Making God Real in the Christian Home by Anthony Coniaris.
5 cups flour plus extra for kneading
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups warm water
2 cakes or envelopes yeast
Standard instructions for bread are: dissolve the yeast in the water, stir in salt and flour until it's too stiff to stir. Knead for 10 minutes, let rise one hour, punch down the dough and shape into loaves, let rise 1/2 hour or until the bread pans are reasonably full, bake 1/2 hour at 375°.

Now prosphora comes with the extra specifications of pray the Jesus Prayer (the Publican's prayer) while kneading, and hold the stamp mold down on each round for the duration of the Lord's Prayer (aha! that's why my stamps didn't take). But since I am making this for family consumption, I can skip straight to my bread machine which will bake a 1-1/2 pound loaf. It can mix twice that amount if I bake the loaves in the oven. This has been a good thing this winter, as it is an excuse to heat up a cold kitchen.

So here's Mom's Bread:
5 cups high-gluten bread flour (all-purpose is too crumbly)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1-3/4 cups warm water (flour tends to be dry)
1 tablespoon dry yeast
Note on yeast: If you bake a lot, it's cheaper to buy a bulk pack from Costco/Sam's Club/BJ's Warehouse than to buy those $1.50 envelopes at the supermarket. But since it will still fizzle out in a year's time despite refrigeration, be liberal using the yeast.
Load your machine the way the maker specifies; mine says liquid first. I put the salt, sugar, and yeast into the water. Then the flour goes on top. I let it mix on the dough cycle and raise until the machine kneads down the first rise. Then the dough is placed in two 10" x 5" loaf pans. The pans are placed in the cold oven to rise.

The baking method I read in a book by William Woys Weaver on Pennsylvania Dutch cooking; he attempted to recreate the effects of a woodfired brick bake oven. Turn the oven to 175° with the loaves in it; let them finish rising 10 minutes. Then turn the oven to 400° and bake 15 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 350° and bake another 15 minutes. Bread should be done now, with a crispy crust. Take it out of the pans to cool so the bottoms don't get soggy.

I usually bake a whole wheat loaf with the 2 white loaves. Its recipe is similar, only it contains 1 tablespoon of applesauce for internal moisture. Oil would work too, but applesauce satisfies certain nitpickers who maintain even a bread should not contain oil on a day not marked 'wine and oil'.

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup high gluten bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon applesauce
1 cup warm water
Mix and bake as above. The sweetness of the applesauce makes this bread more suitable for PB&J sandwiches than for garlic bread...OK by the girls!