Prosphora recipe

Step-by-step preparation

1. Step 1:

   

   Pour (large) salt and about a cup of flour into a dough bowl. Pour boiling water and stir. This is a custard, it should be slightly thicker than the dough for pancakes. Brew and let cool.

2. Step 2:

   

   Add yeast to half a liter of water. Without stirring, let it stand for a minute, the yeast will settle to the bottom.

3. Step 3:

   

   After that, stir and leave for 5 minutes.

4. Step 4:

   

   Add yeast water to the custard and mix.

5. Step 5:

   

   Adding flour, start kneading the dough.

6. Step 6:

   

   As the dough has absorbed flour, add more and knead.

7. Step 7:

   

   The dough should turn out tight, like plasticine. Leave the dough under a damp towel to come up. It takes from 2 to 4 hours. In the process, you can knead the dough once.

8. Step 8:

   

   The finished dough needs to be rolled out. To do this, the dough is laid out on the table and rolled out with a rolling pin. Then it folds in half and rolls out again. And so it is repeated many times until the dough returns the consistency of plasticine. After that, the pieces are measured for the bottoms (the lower part of the prosphora). Weigh the pieces - you need 20 pieces of 100 grams. Cover them so they don't dry out. Remove the leftovers too, they will come in handy.

10. Step 9:

    

    Immediately, without letting the dough come up, roll the pieces into balls (slightly bringing them closer to the cylindrical shape). Transfer the blanks to the baking sheets (the priest prepared them - warmed them up, waxed them and cooled them). When all the bottoms are ready, cover the baking sheets with towels - first dry, and then wet.

11. Step 10:

    

    For the tops, roll out the remains of the dough with a thickness of about 0.5-0.7 cm.

12. Step 11:

    

    Cut out the circles with a glass. Transfer the tops to the board and also cover with towels. Leave everything to approach.

13. Step 12:

    

    When the blanks have come up, wet the bottoms with water.

14. Step 13:

    

    Stamp the top with special seals and put it on the bottom carefully.

15. Step 14:

    

    After that, use an awl to make punctures through the top and bottom to the very baking sheet - so the prosphora will not spread out when baking. Punctures are made like this - first in the center 4 times, then along the rays from the first punctures from the edges, and then along the outer edge between the first 4 punctures. Press the prosphora a little in the center so that the top is flat.

16. Step 15:

    

    Put the prosphora in the oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes at 230 degrees.

17. Step 16:

    

    Ready-made prosphora is well wrapped with towels (blankets) and allowed to reach and cool completely.