Every year for supper on Holy Thursday I like to serve whole wheat bread, usually medium size loaves with a cross cut in them, one loaf for every set of four monks. This year they turned out unusually pretty, or at least the photo did, so I thought I'd share it. As I often do, I added some potato to the mix for a tender crumb and used honey as the sweetener. We have plenty of honey (although we lost more than half our hives over the long, hard winter) but my friend Dan gave me some of his that had sugared up pretty heavily. You can easily restore crystallized honey by warming the jar in a saucepan of water over low heat, but in this case just pulled out a few tablespoons and added it to the liquids. Honey makes for a beautifully browned crust, but it can also cause the crust to get too dark. Many bakers recommend turning the oven temp down by 25 degrees, or covering the loaves lightly with foil for the last half of the baking time. I did neither, but I like the results I got. Hope the brethren will, too.
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