Thursday, January 2, 2014

To bake the impossible bread


Thinking about my Epiphany baking challenge I had the idea to look in this monastery cookbook I have.

It is called "From a Monastery Kitchen by Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette whom I have mentioned before, including in my landmark post "Baker's Nightmare." One thing I have noticed is he is always either very simple or very complicated. There is no middle ground.

So, I go looking for Epiphany. And I see "Epiphany Bread."

Eureka!

Then I look at the recipe. It takes, among other things, 11 eggs, 1 cup melted butter, 7 (!) packages yeast, two and a half pounds of raisins (soak in a quarter to a half cup of warm water, Brother Victor advises) and 16 to 17 cups of flour.

"Yikes!" I exclaimed.

Clearly the journey of making this recipe is supposed to remind you of the journey of the Three Kings, pictured above. There is no other rationale!

You can check out the recipe here. I love how the site reprints it without commenting on that it makes five loaves. It is almost so absurd that it must be tried! But not now. I cannot complete my Pennario project and bake this Epiphany Bread.

One insane project is enough!


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