With the monastery temporarily closed to visitors, we no longer have pilgrims bringing us durum flour (ἀλεύρι κίτρινο) from Greece. I now make natural yeast (sourdough) prosphora with white flour and twenty-six percent whole wheat flour that we mill ourselves, using a small table top stone ground mill.
Beautiful decorative bread Fr Justin!
Looks delicious and reminds me of my favorite ma’amoul decorative cookie (Egyptian origin, called Kahk) made with semolina flour.
I’ll have go to Phoenicia market and get the wooden mould, and try making some!
Looks beautiful!
I miss Saint Catherine’s.
Beautiful. Hope to come back sooner than later.
How do you get your seals so crisp?!
When the monk who made prosphora here left for Jerusalem, I volunteered for the job. Little did I realize what a learning curve there would be, especially to master the whole natural yeast (sourdough) process. The balance of flour and water is critical. If the dough is too soft, it will not take a good impression of the seal. If it is too hard, it will not rise well. Also, I have learned that the whole process is much easier with durum flour, which is easy to find in Greece. I have not found a source for this in Egypt. White flour seems more temperamental, even when it is modified with whole wheat flour.