Highly Specific Question. Leavened Bread during Great Lent

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Bezant

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Hi,

Does the Eucharistic bread used during Great Lent contain eggs?
 
Eucharistic bread is to contain only wheat and flour. Leavening is naturally occuring yeast in the flour. There are never eggs used for making bread for the Eucharist anywhere in the Church.
 
ConstantineTG said:
Eucharistic bread is to contain only wheat and flour. Leavening is naturally occuring yeast in the flour. There are never eggs used for making bread for the Eucharist anywhere in the Church.
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Flour, yeast, salt and water are the ingredients used in phosphora. Bread with no yeast does not rise. It is allowable and was done for centuries before you could buy yeast to use a natural sourdough starter.
 
The Code of Canon Law, Canon 924 requires that the hosts be made from wheat flour and water

ARTICLE 3: THE RITES AND CEREMONIES OF THE EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION

Can. 924 §1 The most holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist must be celebrated in bread, and in wine to which a small quantity of water is to be added.

§2 The bread must be wheaten only, and recently made, so that there is no danger of corruption.

Can. 926 In the eucharistic celebration, in accordance with the ancient tradition of the latin Church, the priest is to use unleavened bread wherever he celebrates Mass.

intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P39.HTM
 
ciero said:
Flour, yeast, salt and water are the ingredients used in phosphora. Bread with no yeast does not rise. It is allowable and was done for centuries before you could buy yeast to use a natural sourdough starter.
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Isn’t it that when you leave some part of a dough behind for some time, it will naturally leaven. Then you can mix this with your next batch, then you leave some from that batch and use it again, and so on.

I don’t know anything about baking except for mix-and-bake brownies. But that process I described is something I just read somewhere.
 
ConstantineTG said:
ciero;7316938:
Flour, yeast, salt and water are the ingredients used in phosphora. Bread with no yeast does not rise. It is allowable and was done for centuries before you could buy yeast to use a natural sourdough starter.
Click to expand...
Isn’t it that when you leave some part of a dough behind for some time, it will naturally leaven. Then you can mix this with your next batch, then you leave some from that batch and use it again, and so on.

I don’t know anything about baking except for mix-and-bake brownies. But that process I described is something I just read somewhere.
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Ciero is correct. The “part left behind” is the same as the sourdough starter. It does, of course, work, but it also changes the taste markedly. What you get is, well … sourdough. To make bread with only natural (i.e. airborne) yeast, will also work, but it takes a very long time: the result is interestingly similar to sourdough, mainly because it takes quite a long while to ferment.
 
ciero said:
Flour, yeast, salt and water are the ingredients used in phosphora. Bread with no yeast does not rise. It is allowable and was done for centuries before you could buy yeast to use a natural sourdough starter.
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And not all prosphora is made using salt, either.
 
ciero said:
That’s correct, the Ruthenians have changed the recipe for prosphora along with their new liturgy. 😃
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I’ve noted that only half the Orthodox prosphora recipes online show salt, either.
 
What is the salt for anyway? Or is this for non-Byzantine Churches? Because in the Byzantine Rite, its intincted anyway. Unless the priests are particular about the taste.
 
ConstantineTG said:
What is the salt for anyway? Or is this for non-Byzantine Churches? Because in the Byzantine Rite, its intincted anyway. Unless the priests are particular about the taste.
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Salt adds strenghth to bread dough, and will help the bread from crumbling. Adds flavor as well, prosphora without salt just tastes flat, but that’s just my opinion.
 
ConstantineTG said:
What is the salt for anyway? Or is this for non-Byzantine Churches? Because in the Byzantine Rite, its intincted anyway. Unless the priests are particular about the taste.
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Salt in baking has several important uses:
  1. it alters the chemistry to strenghen the glutens
  2. it reduces the amount of rising by the yeast
  3. it causes water to cross cell membranes
  4. it adds flavor
Note that, in some areas, the water will have enough salt already, and adding salt will simply moderate the yeast to the point of doing nothing.
 
malphono said:
Ciero is correct. The “part left behind” is the same as the sourdough starter. It does, of course, work, but it also changes the taste markedly. What you get is, well … sourdough. To make bread with only natural (i.e. airborne) yeast, will also work, but it takes a very long time: the result is interestingly similar to sourdough, mainly because it takes quite a long while to ferment.
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Off topic, but maybe a little interesting, the old dough, “part left behind”, goes by many names one of which is “the mother”. 🙂 In bread for the table it can affect taste and texture and rising time etc. depending on a number of factors, % hydration, temperature, which influences the rising time which influences the taste. 🙂
 
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