When most people think of homesteading and bread, they automatically think of fresh, yeasty loaves of sourdough and sandwich breads, but unleavened bread is easy to make, delicious, and bears great significance in our faith life! Though some of the rites of the Catholic Church use leavened bread for the Eucharist, the majority use unleavened bread. (The difference has to do with what is believed to be the particular day that Jesus celebrated the Passover. There is some potential indication in the Gospel of John that He celebrated this memorial a day early, in preparation for His crucifixion as the “Paschal Lamb,” in which case, leavened bread could have been used.)

The recipe below is one that my family has been using for years now, and it’s a favorite of the family’s. We typically make it for Holy Thursday (Passover), but we did this with fresh-ground wheat that we raised for “Lammas Day” (it was even better than what we normally make), and sometimes the kids will randomly ask to make it throughout the year. This is also a great food to have on fasting days or days of abstinence!

Note that the cook time is something you will need to work out for yourself. This is entirely dependent on how thick or thin you work your dough, and it depends on how soft or firm you want the finished bread to be. This bread is best eaten fresh. You can save leftovers, but know that it will harden more after cooling completely, making it more difficult to eat.

You can use olive oil or vegetable oil in the recipe. I have not tried it with melted butter, but I’m sure it would work, too. We don’t worry about water temperature. I have yet to try swapping the sugar for maple syrup or honey, but I believe my sister-in-law has with success. We’ve made this with your average unbleached, sifted flour, and with freshly milled whole wheat flour. The latter was far superior, in my opinion, but both are excellent. We don’t typically serve it with anything, but it could be dipped in oil or other dressing, and it can be served with a flavored butter.

Unleavened Bread

Preheat oven to 400F

Ingredients:

• 3 c. flour
• 3 T. sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 T. oil
• water

Directions:

Mix dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Then add the oil and some water and mix. Add water slowly until dough begins to form a ball of shaggy dough. Begin kneading. Add water if needed. Knead until a smooth ball has formed. Roll the dough out, roughly 1/4″ thick, on a lightly floured surface. If you are struggling to get the dough to be thinner, you can work it with your hands to stretch it. Transfer to a parchment lined sheet and bake until golden, anywhere from 10-20 minutes. It may take longer, so check on it every couple of minutes. You should be able to tell if the dough looks undercooked. If the bread is removed from the oven and cut, and you find it doesn’t look fully cooked, you can put it back in the oven until it finishes cooking. Overcooking it will make it tough! Cut the bread into strips before it hardens (a pizza cutter works well for this). Alternatively, if the bread is being served while still warm, it can be torn or broken apart. You can brush the whole bread with butter after removing from the oven and lightly sprinkle with salt, but it is good without this addition.

Enjoy!

In Christ,
Danielle