Communion Bread Recipe

I found a couple of communion bread recipes:

www.kingofpeace.org/resources/breadrecipe.rtf

King of Peace Episcopal Church 

Communion Bread Recipe

Mix thoroughly in a large bowl: 

4 cups whole wheat flour 

1 teaspoon salt 

4 teaspoons baking powder 

In a small bowl, mix well: 

1 cup water 

1/2 cup vegetable oil 

1/2 cup honey 

Add the liquid ingredients to the flour mixture and stir until a soft dough is formed. Knead for about five minutes.  Divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll out each piece on a floured surface, into a circle about 6 inches in diameter. Use a large round container to cut out each host. 

Use a small biscuit cutter to lightly score a circle in the center. Then use a spatula or pastry scraper to score the straight lines. Push just deep enough to make the marks, but not deep enough to cut all the way through. The finished design looks like this: 

Bake on cookie sheets (lightly sprayed with oil) at 375^o until edges just begin to lightly brown (about 12 minutes). When partially cool, place 5 hosts in each quart sized plastic freezer bag.

—Adapted from a Trappist Monk recipe used at Virginia Theological Seminary

Also, this one, from:   http://breadnet.net/altar-bread.html

"PENNSYLVANIA ALTAR BREAD"

"An earthy whole-wheat bread used for communion"

In Pittsburgh and other Western

 Pennsylvania parishes of the Episcopal church, it is common to use small, thin loaves of real, fresh, home-made bread at communion instead of the pressed wafers popular in most other places. The bread has a chewy texture to it, keeps tremendously well, and makes a great lunchbox food (each ``loaf'' is about the size a large cookie). This recipe comes from Father Bill Coats of the Church of the Redeemer in Pittsburgh.

• "8\-10 single-serving loaves"
• "7/8 cup" "lukewarm water" "210 ml"
• (The water should be about 110 degrees"
• "3 Tbsp" "honey" "50 ml"
• "1\(12 Tbsp" "olive oil" "25 ml"
• "\(12 tsp" "salt" "2.5 ml"
• "1 pkg" "active dry yeast" "7 g"
• "2 2/3 cups" "whole wheat flour" "350 g" (Unsifted)

Combine water and yeast in mixing bowl. Add honey, olive oil, and salt.

Add flour. If flour does not completely dampen, add small amounts of water until all of the flour is damp. Be sparing with the water.

Turn out onto a very lightly floured board, and knead thoroughly for 5 minutes until dough is extremely elastic.

Sprinkle a tiny amount of olive oil in a big bowl, then roll the dough in it until the dough is covered with olive oil. Leave the dough in the bowl, cover with a cloth, and let rise for 1\(12 hours, or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Punch the dough down, knead again for a few seconds. Roll the dough out wi

th a rolling pin, as if you were making a pizza crust, to a thickness of "\(14 inch" "5 mm" .

Using something like a large peanut butter jar or a giant cookie cutter, cut out "4-inch" "10-cm" circles of the dough and lift them onto a slightly-oiled baking sheet. Press a cross into the top surface of each, so that it can be easily broken apart.

Bake the loaves, on their baking sheet, in a preheated 350 degrees oven for 10 minutes.

You can freeze these loaves easily; either put them in single-serving ziploc bags and use them for school lunches, or freeze a bunch in a large food-storage bag.

Fr. Bill Coats
Church of the Redeemer
Pittsburgh, PA