In our Altar-Bread room, we have five stoves to bake Communion wafers of various kinds: white, whole-wheat, gluten-free, both large and small.
Large wafers may be patterned with small crosses, plain or imprinted with a single large cross.
Each stove consists of 2 pizza-sized plates heated to roughly 140C, which come together clamshell-wise to bake the batter.
It is quite an art to manage four or five stoves single-handed. Since each giant wafer takes about a minute to be ready, an individual sister could be opening, emptying, refilling and cleaning around a stove roughly every twelve seconds for around 90 minutes at a time. Our stoves also bake at different speeds so they are constantly getting in and out of sync with one another.
It is not so dissimilar to the party trick where a juggler spins dozens of plates on tall sticks without dropping any.
Parcels of wafers are distributed to churches throughout the country and a few abroad.
Price Information
(From 1st January 2011)
Baked by the Community, using organic flour from our local Cotswold Mill:-
Choice of white or wholemeal
- 63 mm diameter (sold in packets of 40)
- Large Cross design (with fraction mark on reverse): 7p ea.
- Small crosses all over pattern: 6p ea.
- Plain both sides: 5p ea.
- 28 mm diameter (sold in packets of 500)
- (Small cross all over design, or plain): £5.00 per bag of 500
Gluten free, non-wheat breads
- Small squarecut by hand: £1.50 per bag of 50
- 63mm diameter (note: cut on same machine as wheat bread) 7p ea.
Concelebration breads
We also retail 140mm diameter breads, marked into 24 pieces: £8.50 – box of 25
Note: Packing & Postage extra
Please allow up to 14 days for the delivery of your order.
Cheques should be made payable to the COMMUNITY OF ST CLARE
If you are interested in purchasing wafers or require further details please contact:
wafers@oscfreeland.co.uk
or write to:
The Altar Bread Room
St Mary’s Convent
Freeland, Witney.
OX29 8AJ
or phone 01993 881225 preferably mornings 10-11:30am
