We were watching that Diners, Drive-ins and Dives show last night and they were at a Bosnian restaurant in Texas.  The chef was making several dishes that incorporated a flatbread somewhat like a pita only much thicker.

I've scoured the interwebs and was surprised at the lack of information on how to make these.

Maybe use a pita recipe and form the loaves about 1/2" thick?

 Any hints on rolling out thin flour tortillas?  I got some flour tortilla masa and I like the flavor, but I can't seem to get the tortillas thin enough.  I even bought a tortilla press, but they are still too thick. 

Is it a matter of resting the dough?  The directions say to knead the dough until smooth, let it rest, covered, for 5 minutes, form the balls and roll them out.  Would I have better luck allowing the balls of dough to rest--they do seem to be a bit "tight" gluten-wise when there is no rest.  If so, how long?

If you have any hints for handling very thin rounds of dough before getting them on the griddle, that would be appreciated as well.   I.e. how to stack them so they don't stick together and how to move them to the griddle without folding up on themselves. 

 My family asks "why make them when we can buy them so easily?" but I love the idea of making them for freshness and frugality (a bag of masa costs only as much as two commercial packages of tortillas and will make dozens more).  Besides, it's nice dough to work with ;o)

 I hope to have some always ready to go in the freezer so we don't have to plan ahead. My youngest would eat bean burrito's 3 meals a day if we let her, and it would be nice for her to be able to have tortillas and beans for impromptu weekend meals. 

Hi ALl:

I have been using American Pie by P Reinhart for dough recipes and for the most part am satisfied. I love the focaccia! For the Napolitano dough, I like it but it always seems like it lacks stiffness, it is too loose. I am a little reluctant to add too much flour and thought I would ask the forum what experiences you have all had with it. I also made the neo-Napolitano and after retarding overnight it seemed to lose its shape and be more of a blob. Any thoughts or comments?

Thanks

Jeff

hello,

is anyone familiar with freezing formed and topped pizzas (not baked), what would be shelf life at 0 F, type of dough ... any advice is appreciated.

and yes i have blast chiller at -40 F.

thanks in addvance

Hi all, please let me know of good and healthy recipes for pizza, thanks

For the last several years I have been baking focaccio using Peter Reinhart's recipe (with some modifiations). The result has been uniformly excellent, until yesterday. Yesterday's focaccia was terrible; and I have no idea what went wrong.

Here's the scenario:
I make the focaccio in 3 stages: first a pre-ferment, then a shaping and an overnight rise in the refrigerator; finally, the topping and final rise, and the baking. I start off with 325g of flour; use some in the pre-ferment; add the remainder the next day; then allow it to rise for an hour. At that point I divide the dough in half, and store half in the freezer.

This is what I did with the latest attempt. I made the focaccio 2 weeks ago, used half (it was delicious) and stored half. Yesterday I took the second half from the freezer, allowed it to come to room temperature; stretched and oiled it, and put it into the refrigerator overnight. Yesterday I took it out, allowed it to come to room temperature, put toppings on it, allowed it to rise, and then baked it. It was awful!! There was no oven-spring; the dough never appeared to rise; and, when baked did not cook properly. One could still taste the flour, and there was no crumb.

My question is: What happened? Why was the first half excellent, and the second half terrible? How did all the yeast die (if that's what happened)?

Insights will be welcomed.
Tom

We do pizza about once a week at my house, I usually use a crust that is really tasty and comes out quite nice, slightly crisp and chewy.

However, a couple weeks ago my daughter said she wanted hers thinner, crisp and crunchy, Cracker like.

I have tried rolling/stretching the dough, Pre-baking, oiling. These didn't do it, so in my never ending quest to win father of the century I am turning to my friends and peers here in TFL for help.

HELP!

I need a recipe for the ultimate crispy, crunchy, cracker like pizza crust.

I was making dough earlier today and ran short on flour - (I was using all purpose)

So I substituted 1/3 of the flour with course semolina flour. I'll know tomorrow if this was a good move.....wondering if anyone else has done this?.....what do I expect. I would think it would just be a bit more rustic?

thoughts?

thanks
Andy

I had a big baking day yesterday, with a couple pugliese loaves from BBA using mostly durum flour (made a fine breakfast with butter and honey this morning), the largest ciabatta I've ever made, and Dan Leader's Genzano Potato Pizza from Local Breads to come with me to a potluck.

I also thought I should introduce myself, since I haven't really posted much before. I live in Pennsylvania via Kentucky. I bake for fun, therapy, health, and the downright delicious results. I've cooked my whole life and started baking bread regularly about two years ago. I also make beer, cider, yogurt, and have tinkered with cheese, so am interested in all things fermentable.

The potato pizza formula is the same as for Genzano Country Bread (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4417/genzano-country-bread-local-breads), but after fermentation it is coaxed into an oiled sheet pan and topped with lots of very thin potatoes, onions (red for me), fresh rosemary, and a bit of coarse salt.  It was a lot of fun working the enormous mass of wet dough into the pan.  I actually made Genzano Country Bread a few days ago, and trying to shape this wet beast of a dough into something like a boule and getting it safely into a proofing basket had me laughing like a crazy man.   

I used all KA organic bread flour.  Daniel recommends high-gluten, but I've found that Sir Lancelot is a lot stronger than I like unless I need to offset a lot of rye or similar.  The formula uses a biga naturale that I just made from my firm starter, and is spiked with instant yeast for a vigorous rise.  In the future I'd like to omit the instant yeast and give it a whirl with wild yeast alone.  The dough is pretty sloppy, and needed high speed mixing for about 12 minutes to come together suitably.  After about a 3 hour ferment, it was shaped, topped, and baked immediately at 500 for a shade over 30 minutes.  Sorry I don't have pictures of the whole thing, I cut it in half before removing it from the pan, but hopefully you can get the idea.  I called this one successful, the crust was crisp and delicious and the crumb was ideal.  I've never liked potato pizzas I've ordered out because the potatoes tend to come WAY undercooked, but these were much nicer because of the bake time, and some of those on the top were browned and crisp.  My only addition to this in the future would be garlic, and lots of it.

Logan

Hi,

I am equipped with a turbo convection oven just like that one in the photo.

It's working great while using it for baking my pastries( I'm mainly doing pastry cooking) and as I intend to add some more baked products such as pizza,foccacia and similar flat breads ,was wondering if it works well when using a turbo baking system (baking up to 4 trays at the same time)?

Anyone with previous experience?