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UPDATE! As I have mentioned before, AE bakers used techniques that are different than we are used to today. And while there were eventually about 150 different words for bread in the AE language, the most popular breads seemed to be made in special jars, called bdja (bedja jars). 
We sampled several of these recently in our work collecting ancient yeast cultures from inside Ancient Egyptian ceramics.
I’m now practicing to try to make really yummy bread using accurate ingredients, and our (hopefully) truly ancient yeast cultures. As you may know from my endless, boring baking pictures, I have got to the point where I can make good looking and tasty loaves pretty consistently.
So, while @rbowman1234 works on microbiology and sampling, @drserenalove has been forcing me to get my act together on accurate baking. This involves a lot of things, from actually making bdja...
...to working with accurate ingredients, starting with 100% Emmer, Barley, and Einkorn, moving through different fats from Linseed oil to Goat lard, all the way to flavorings such as Dates and Coriander. I’ve posted some pictures of these experiments before; now you know why.
So, to recap, and to give you a reasonable excuse to abandon this insane geekthread right here: I’m running this as an actual experiment. I’m trying to master one step at a time, first making dough, then baking conventionally, then fats, then flavorings. Slow. Steady. Zzzzzzzz.
Baking in these bdja pots is challenging. Lots of people have tried, with varying success. @drserenalove has posted this excellent overview that explains better than I can most of these topics:
So the task this weekend is to bake-using our accurate dough-in a bdja for the first time. Now, bdja were used over a fire and fire pit, not an oven, but again I’m doing one step at a time. So we are first going to try “oven bdja” so we can get good at it BEFORE building fires.
First step was to learn how to properly season a ceramic baking vessel. This took a moment, but a combination of water soaks, oil and fat rubbings, and filling my entire house with smoke on the hottest summer days seemed to be the process.
Once I had made the bdja as nonstick as I possibly could, it was time to roll the dice. I pre-heated it, tossed some dough in, and put the thing in the oven! I’m shaking! Holding my breath! And...
...it takes a full hour to bake. Time to go outside, do a load of laundry, catch up on your tax law, etc.
OMG its a super cool conical Ancient Egyptian style bread! It looks so awesome and it smells amazing. This is SUCH a cool moment for me, a nice milestone.
So of course we had to try it, and it’s every bit as soft and light and good as the conventional basket loaves we have been practicing. Now- to be honest, it’s been a lot of work and trial and error to get a result this nice. And it’s still not over fire. But, awesome progress!
I’m going to bed! Thanks for putting up with all the spore collecting and archeological nuttiness. If we can, we are for sure going to resurrect this food, and I really think we can. Thanks for reading. ❤️👊
