Memorial Bread

Beautiful newly departed Lucia

I know is on many of our hearts and minds

today as we learned of her

entrance into

the Kingdom of God.

*

I have been planning on telling everyone

about the bread and kolivo

that I used for the panakyda

for my spiritual mother

and thought that to honour Lucia

I would share

the recipes from two women in my parish,

one is Bulgarian, one is Ukrainian.

Part of grief for us as Orthodox Christians

is the in preparing these dishes.

I cannot tell you how important and comforting

it is for Orthodox Christians to do these things;

I see it very much in my church.

*

So with love for Lucia

and her beautiful grieving parents,

I am going to give you the bread recipes

I was given.

My Bulgarian friend and I emailed extensively one day

for both the bread and kolivo recipes.

In my next post I will explain how to make the kolivo,

which is beautiful and a bit more involved.

Bread 1

2 cups regular yougurt (for the Lent you can put instead of yougurt water)
2 cups flour
2 soup spoons oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 soup spoon baking powder

Mix with the mixer . If the mix is too thin, put more flour, or if it too thick, put more water. Put on the top walnuts. Bake.

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Bread 2

1 coffee spoons salt
600 grams water
2 soup spoons yeast (as a powder)
flour

Warm the water. Mix the baking powder with the flour and put it little by little in the water, add more flour until you get a dough. Knead it for a while. Then leave the dough for a while, it have to grow (if it possible leave it in a warm place, close to the oven, or on the stove). Then take a dish and spread an oil on the bottom, put it the dough in it and bake it. You can make a Cross or, flowers or other figures from the dough for decoration.

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In these books usually they put many ingredients but for Lenten bread/dough I put only flour, salt, water, yeast. For my bread maker I put 1 1/3 cups water, 1 tea spoon salt, 1-2 soup spoons oil, 1 tea spoon sugar and 3 1/3 cups flour. The flour must totally cover the water. On the top of the flower is the yeast-2 tea spoons. Then I put the bread maker on dough and after 2 hours it is ready. But I leave it for 30 min. more in the machine to relax and grow. Then again needs to be knead it, and then make it in the shape that you want and again leave it for a while (around 1 hr) for growing. Bake it.

I don't now your machine how big is, that's why use your instructions! If you don't have one for dough just follow these for a regular white bread, ignore the milk and eggs, and put only water, salt,
sugar, oil, flour, yeast, AND PUT THE MACHINE ON 'DOUGH'' INSTEAD OF ''BREAD''. And this is it.

*
After the dough was made
(I had to mix a little bit of the flour that did not get mixed by my
bread machine)
I kneaded it in my hands,
punched it a bit
and let it sit to rise,
putting a clean tea table cloth on top while it rose.
*
After it had doubled
I kneaded / punched it again
and let it rise,
again putting the tea towel over it.
*
Then I molded it into a small mound,
took a little bit of the dough off the side to
make the Cross
and let it sit for a little bit
before putting it in the oven.
I think I baked it around
370 degrees
for about 30 minutes;
when it was slightly golden and smelled
wonderfully of bread
I took it out and immediately
(I used my hands as I did not have a brush)
put olive oil over the top of the bread
and it turned a beautiful golden colour
within seconds.
*
Once it was cooled
I covered it with the cloth again
(wrapping it lightly)
before bringing it to church the next day
for the service.

Among the spirits of the righteous perfected in faith,

give rest, O Savior, to the soul of your servant.

Bestow upon it the blessed life which is from You,

O loving Lord.

Within your peace, O Lord, where all Your Saints repose,

give rest also to the soul of Your servant,

for You alone Immortal.

- From the Trisagion Service,

published by Holy Cross Orthodox Press