Prosphora recipe

Step-by-step preparation

Cooking time: 5 hr

1. STEP 1

   

   Place (large) salt and about a cup of flour in a dough bowl. Pour boiling water over and stir. This is a custard dough, it should be slightly thicker than pancake batter. Brew and let cool.

2. STEP 2

   

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

3. STEP 3

   

   After this, stir and leave for 5 minutes.

4. STEP 4

   

   Add yeast water to the custard mixture and stir.

5. STEP 5

   

   Add flour and begin kneading the dough.

6. STEP 6

   

   As the dough absorbs flour, add more and knead.

7. STEP 7

   

   The dough should be as tight as plasticine. Leave the dough under a damp towel to rise. This takes from 2 to 4 hours. You can knead the dough once during this process.

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 this is repeated many times until the dough returns the consistency of plasticine. After this, pieces are measured for the bottoms (the lower part of the prosphora). Weigh the pieces - you need 20 pieces of 100 grams each. Cover them to keep them from drying out. Remove the leftovers too, they will come in handy.

9. STEP 9

   

   Immediately, without letting the dough rise, roll the pieces into balls (bringing them a little closer to a cylindrical shape). Transfer the preparations to baking sheets (father prepared them - he heated them, greased them with wax and cooled them). When all the bottoms are ready, cover the baking sheets with towels - first dry and then wet.

10. STEP 10

    

    For the tops, roll out the remaining dough to about 0.5-0.7 cm thick.

11. STEP 11

    

    Cut out circles with a glass. Place the tops on a board and cover with towels. Leave everything to come up.

12. STEP 12

    

    When the workpieces have arrived, wet the bottom with water.

13. STEP 13

    

    Stamp the tops with special stamps and place them carefully on the bottoms.

14. STEP 14

    

    After this, use an awl to make punctures through the top and bottom all the way to the baking sheet - this way the prosphora will not spread out during 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 slightly in the center so that the top is flat.

15. STEP 15

    

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

16. STEP 16

    

    The finished prosphora is well wrapped in towels (bedspreads) and allowed to cool completely.