Pennsylvania Altar Bread
There's nothing more salt of the earth than making your own homemade bread. This recipe for Pennsylvania Altar Bread is great because it features simple, wholesome ingredients like honey, olive oil and wheat flour. Just follow along with these step-by-step instructions to learn how to make your own delicious bread for your family. This old-fashioned bread recipe is great to make to serve with dinner or enjoy just about any time of day.
Preparation Time1 hr 30 min
Cooking Time10 min
Ingredients
- 7/8 cup lukewarm water
- 3 tablespoon honey
- 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 2 2/3 cup whole wheat flour, unsifted
Instructions
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Combine water and yeast in mixing bowl.
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Add honey, olive oil, and salt.
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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.
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Turn out onto a very lightly floured board, and knead thoroughly for 5 minutes until dough is extremely elastic.
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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.
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Leave the dough in the bowl, cover with a cloth, and let rise for 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
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Punch the dough down and knead again for a few seconds. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin, as if you were making a pizza crust, to a thickness of about 1/4 inch.
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Using something like a large peanut butter jar or a giant cookie cutter, cut out about 4-inch 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 for 10 minutes.
Note: 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.