Does anybody know the answer or can refer me to any resource that will explain why yeasted and flat breads have markedly different geography? Does it have anything to do with properties of yeast?  Or possible effect of yeast on the body and health?

Having battered myself attempting to conquer (well...make peace with?) baguettes - hampered by still developing scoring techniques and an old gas oven that simply won't retain steam - this morning I decided to treat myself to something less daunting.  I've been looking at some of the flatbread recipes in Hamelman's Bread, and his fougasse recipe caught my interest.  It's simple and has a pleasing scoring pattern (no gringes, thank you very much).

The bake turned out nicely, I think, and the reaction of my pub companions with whom I shared the loaf was positive.  It yielded a nice crust, and a chewy crumb infused with flavor from the olives and the olive oil.  This is a wonderful snack-type bread that will disappear quickly, as it should.  With its large area of crust, including that around the decorative slits, it's not meant to store but bake and eat soon as it's cooled sufficiently.

I diverted from his recipe just a tad - instead of a small pinch of yeast in the pâte fermentée, I substituted 15% of my 60% hydrated sourdough starter.  The only noticeable difference was a slight hint of sourness to the pâte fermentée the next morning which I enjoyed.

The one challenge was moving the fougasse to my parchment covered peel.  Once you score the risen dough (I used a pizza cutter which worked well), the cuts tend to spring open immediately.  This is nice.  However, attempting to lift the fougasse onto the peel was a nightmare, as the cuts made it impossible to lift the dough without it stretching in every direction.  At first I looked at what appeared to be a hopeless mass, but with some patient rearranging I was able to reconstitute its shape.  In the future, I will probably do the final shaping and slashing with the dough on the peel to avoid potential disaster and aggravation.

Otherwise, it's remarkably simple and the the finished product elicits a very high "oooohhhh" factor when shown off.

Larry

Last week I posted a video by Susan Reid of KA Kitchens demonstrating Asiago Grilled [Flatbread] Rounds. I tried the recipe, but was a bit disappointed in the results--they came out kind of tough. After musing about it this week, I think I probably over grilled them. I watched the video, but then made the recipe according to the printed out version. If anyone tries these, I urge them to follow what she does on the video rather than what is written. For my grill, 8 minutes was too long. She also covered them before flipping them on the video--the written instructions say after flipping. I should try this recipe again sometime.

http://how2heroes.com/videos/dessert-and-baked-goods/grilled-asiago-rounds

--Pamela

 

Has anyone here had success making roti canai?  It is the Malaysian version of Indian parathas, that I ate when I was in Malaysia earlier this year.  Flaky, crisp on the outside, layers of soft chew on the inside, sometimes filled with egg, meat, or banana.

The shaping of the dough was interesting, too.  It was flung around in a circular motion and slapped onto the counter until it was paper thin and nearly see-through, then folded into an envelope and thrown on the griddle.

I want to ultimately make a whole wheat or partially whole wheat version of this, if possible.  So far, no good!

You can read more details on my blog.

Anybody have more success at this than I did?

Aloha,

Alina

Find award-winning vegetarian and vegan recipes at my blog:  http://almostveganinparadise.wordpress.com

Does anyone have a particular recommendation for a book that is either entirely about flatbreads or at least contains a nice large section on them?  Honestly, I'm mostly interested in the Indian flatbreads, but I'd love to learn some of the Eastern Europe, Mediterranean and African flatbreads as well.

I'd also appreciate links to any of your favorite recipes on the Fresh Loaf or elsewhere.

-Toby

I mixed the focaccia dough at around noon. It was around 25C in the kitchen. The dough hadn't even budged by 5:00pm. Still no sign of any rising by 6:00. So I decided to cut the dough into 8 pieces and try making pitas. As I rolled out the discs, I wracked my brains trying to think what was different.

1. I had rehydrated the yeast with cold water. That shouldn't have been a problem. It was plenty warm enough in the kitchen
2. I had added leftover sludge after feeding the wild yeast. That shouldn't have been a problem. It wasn't that acidic. In fact there was no sour taste to the dough at all.
3. Maybe I had added too much salt. I don't think so. It didn't taste too salty.
4. I had added malt to the yeast. No, if anything that would have helped rather than inhibited the rise.
5. The flour is relatively new. If at least 4 loaves of bread hadn't been made from that bag of flour, I'd have blamed the flour.

The next morning, my husband found a little dish of creamy looking water on top of the stove. There were a few fruit flies doing the breast stroke in it. The liquid smelled faintly of apples. And THAT'S why my focaccia dough refused to rise. I forgot to add the yeasted water to the dough! Quel moron. Hmmmm, if there was no yeast in the dough, these can't really be called "pitas", can they? I think they have to be considered as "chapatis" because they are yeast-free.

• recipe for how NOT to make rosemary focaccia
• recipes for flatbread, including pitas and focaccia

A few mornings ago, I imagined that my wild yeast starter was all ready to make bread. I announced I would make focaccia with it to go with that evening's dinner of puy lentils and sausage. Silly me. I should have known this would be a mistake. My failures with my wild yeast are legion this winter. The focaccia dough failed entirely to rise. Not even a glimmer of a bubble. After several hours. So I stuck the slumping lump of dough in the fridge and made another announcement: I would make chapatis with wild yeast (ha) dough the next day, because they're made without yeast anyway. What a brilliant save!! The chapatis tasted faintly sour but they were absolutely wonderful. Especially when you consider that the dough might have been baked into a spectacularly terrible focaccia.

• recipes for flatbread, including chapatis and focaccia
• Moringa Leaf Omelette and Chapatis

At some point not long after turning the oven on to preheat our bread stone, a fuse blew. We didn't notice until after putting the first two naan in the oven. Luckily for us though, we remembered that we had once made pita on the stovetop. So we quickly grabbed the tava (shallow pan in photo) and started heating it on the big burner.

Barbari (Iranian Flat Bread)

Barbari

 

Bread Baking Day 7 with the theme flatbreads hosted by Petra Chili und Ciabatta . Deadline: March 1st, 2008

My wife loves Panera Crispani. What kind of flatbread should I make to mimic theirs?