I regularly make flatbread, using a bread machine to make the dough, then rolling out flat and throwing onto a hot griddle pan.  The breads start to bubble within a few seconds and when cooked (1 - 2 mins) are beautifully soft and puffy.

However, I recently cooked some for a dinner party, and to save time and effort, I rolled out the breads a couple of hours ahead of time, instead of rolling them immediately prior to cooking as I do normally.  I stacked them with sheets of grease proof paper between each bread and kept them at room temperature until I needed to cook them.

When I put them in the pan to cook, they hardly bubbled or puffed up at all and instead just lay there in the pan.  When cooked, they were considerably denser and harder than normal and nothing like the delicious, light breads I normally get.

Can anyone shed any light on why this might have happened?  Is it because they had been sitting out for a couple of hours before cooking?  I wouldn't have expected this to affect them but I'm wondering if it did.

If so, how could I prepare such breads for a dinner party in advance so that I don't have to roll them out at the last minute?

Many thanks, James

I am doing research on the U.K. bread industry, and I'm looking to better understand trends that are taking place. One trend I am studying is the use of flatbread. I'd like to talk to people who are familiar with this market to better research if this is a growing trend, and if so, why.

Can anyone help me better understand this?

Hi everyone, this is my first post on Fresh Loaf,

I'm trying to make a flatbread that tastes like mild cornbread (somewhere between an earthy, "maizey" white masa tortilla and the sweet yellow cornbread I grew up eating) that has the physical properties of pita bread, in that it is fluffy and breadlike, yet easly folds so that you can wrap it around fillings.

So far, I'm getting the taste and fluffy breadiness I want from the recipe below, but the flatbreads break and crumble when I try to fold them, even though the crust is relatively soft and they will flex a bit.

I'm a complete baking noob, so I'm probably missing some basic steps. Here's the recipe, loosely based on this 40 minute bun recipe, the only bread besides pizza crust I've successfully done so far (besides a gazillion cornbreads and tortillas).

• 1 package Fleischmann’s RapidRise Yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup flour (Gold Medal Better-for-Bread unbleached)
• 2 cups white cornmeal (masa de harina)

1. Mix all ingredients.
2. Let KiktchenAid work on it for ten minutes, on low with dough hook.
3. Pour very sticky mess onto counter, attempt to separate into ten equal portions. (Austin is very humid, btw.)
4. Make a huge mess with dry flour forming the portions into balls.
5. As delicately as possible, flatten and shape them by hand into circular flatbreads.
6. Put them on a lightly greased cookie sheet, cover with warm, moist linen towel, set sheet on stove for 10-15 minutes while the oven heats to 425F.
7. Cook until lightly browned, about another 10-15 minutes.

That's it. Like I said, they taste pretty good, but they aren't nearly as flexible as pita bread, probably because of the cornmeal. Again, I'd be very thankful for any ideas.

Cheers :)

Hi. I had a wierd bread I have been making, and wondering if something is dangerous.

I have been making a sourdough flatbread.

I mix oatbran and buckwheat in a 3:1 proportion. A little bit of salt and molasses. Enough water to make a thick batter. I let it ferment until quite funky. Bake on a griddle, a bit thinner than a pancake. I eat with a schmear of pesto. I like it because it is fast, has a strong taste, and healthy. I had been making english muffins before and this is much easier.

I keep it on the counter in a bowl with plate on top. Refrigerate if i don't eat any for a few days. A few days fermentation and some hooch forms on the surface. I normally stir it back in. I have noticed it will sometimes develope a matte look to the layer on top, especially if it is cool but not cold. Tends to smell a bit different when this happens. (Twice i've also let it go too long and had white mold form. I use a bit from the bottom to restart it.) I am not sure if this is the begining of mold, or something else. I have thought of two options: starchy liquid that dries out enough to form a skin, or i have fermented enough unusual short-chain fatty acids that are causing this.

I made Tomato, Parmesan and Basil flatbread from Bouke Street Bakery cookbook this weekend with our home-grown peach tomatoes.

The tomato resembles cherry tomato in size, only with yellow colour. It tastes sweet and mild acidic with a beautiful aroma.

I tweaked the recipe a little by using sourdough starter instead of pre-ferment, which I believe give extra flavour.

The recipe is here.

Sue

http://youcandoitathome.blogspot.com

Does anyone have a perfect, tried and true recipe for nan-e-taftoon? All the recipes I have tried are inauthentic and I want to make a homecooked Persian meal for by Tehranian mother-in-law

Fortunately, one of my friends is an appliance repairman. Unfortunately, the part he needs costs $95 and has to be ordered from the mainland (I live in Hawai'i).

What can I bake on the stovetop? Am I limited to pancakes, scones, muffins, and flatbreads? Or would a cast-iron Dutch oven, with a cast-iron lid, over low heat, pinch-hit for an oven?

Awhile ago, I tried making Tunisian Flatbread from a sketchy set of instructions, and while the result was delicious it was also a total mess.  I got some extremely helpful comments in the forum, and decided to try again.   This is a lot prettier than last time.   And certainly a quick and easy bread to make if you haven't gotten around to planning the day before.   The loaves are a bit less than 8 inches in diameter and over an inch tall.   I'll serve with lamb this evening for dinner.

250g semolina flour

250g bread flour (I used King Arthur All Purpose)

1 tsp salt

2 tsp instant yeast

250 ml warm water

125 ml olive oil

egg yolk for glazing

sesame seeds

Mix flour, water, salt, olive oil, yeast until dough adheres and cleans the bowl - two to four minutes in a stand up mixer at high speed with a dough hook.   Let rise for around an hour until double.   Preheat oven to 400 deg F.  (Around 200 deg C)  Divide and shape into two disks on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.   Brush with egg yolk.   Sprinkle with sesame seeds.    Bake for 40 minutes.   (I turned down oven to 300 after 25 minutes.)    Other version of this type of bread used all white flour, milk instead of water, and an egg thrown in, but I wanted to try to preserve as much of the taste of my last try before moving on to other variations. 

I had been wondering precisely how dough hydration affects a dough's ability to stretch to form a membrane, so this morning I did a quasi-scientific experiment to get a rough idea of how this works.

I made five batches of dough, at different hydration levels, using the following recipe:

525g bread flour

15g sugar

10g salt

8g yeast

The hydration levels were 50%, 57%, 64% and 71%

The sugar, salt and water were added to a 6qt KA mixer bowl, and the flour and yeast were floated on top. The mixture was then kneaded with a spiral dough hook for 15 minutes on setting 2, and then a 200g ball from each batch was set to rise for two hours in an air conditioned environment (~74 deg).

It should be noted that the spiral dough hook wasn't able to form a proper ball with the 64% and 71% batches, so I imagine that the kneading that they received wasn't quite as rigorous as the others.

After rising, the dough was given a french fold, and left to rest for 5 mins, after which, three 10g balls were plucked from each 200g ball. These 10g balls were then rolled out in to as thin a membrane as I could manage using a rolling pin and dusting flour. The 64% and especially the 71% doughs were tricky to handle.

The rough average area that I managed to produce from each batch is as follows:

50%: 20.5"

57%: 25"

64%: 25.6"

71%: 26"

To make the most of the experiment, I also made a 57% batch where I substituted 10% of the water for oil (270g water, 30g olive oil). I was able to get an average membrane of 23.3" out of it.

There has to be a point where adding more water will do more harm to the extensibility than good (soup doesn't make a very good membrane), but it looks like I didn't quite reach it in this experiment. Seeing as the gains past 57% were modest, and the increase in difficulty of handling was significant, I probably wouldn't go much past it for stretchiness sake alone. My go-to pizza dough recipe uses 62% hydration, and as a result of the results found here, I might experiment with lowering it for practicality sake. On the other hand, it could be that if the 64 and 71% batches balled-up properly in the KA, they might have proven to be even more extensible.

I do have pictures, and more procedural data if anyone wants it.

Image: Chipati with chickpea, potato and spinach stew.

I wrote a story in the WaPo on a wood-fired baking class at King Arthur Flour with Jeffrey Hamelman. Here's the companion recipe on flatbread, which has a hydration of 66%. It seemed appropriate given the long thread launched by Bhutan Baker.

Summer is a great time to make this yeast-free flatbread, which takes minutes to cook on top of the stove. The recipe calls for chapati flour, a very finely ground whole-wheat flour that is available in Indian markets. You can use regular whole-wheat flour, but it must be sifted to remove any large particles of bran.

MAKE AHEAD: This dough is best made in the morning for use later in the day. The balls of dough can be refrigerated in a lightly oiled resealable plastic food storage bag for 2 or 3 days; let the dough come to room temperature before rolling. The flatbreads can be wrapped in aluminum foil and reheated in a 400-degree oven for about 5 minutes.

Makes 12 flatbreads

Ingredients:

3 cups (400 grams) whole-wheat flour or chapati flour, plus more for the work surface (see headnote)

Scant 1 1/4 cups (265 grams) water

2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil, plus more for the bowl

1 1/2 teaspoons (8 grams) salt

Directions:

Combine the flour, water, oil and salt in a bowl until they come together into a mass. Let sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes while the flour absorbs the water.

Lightly flour a work surface. (All-purpose flour can be used for this; if using whole-wheat flour, make sure it has been sifted to remove any large bran particles.) Transfer the dough to the work surface and knead for about 5 minutes by pushing down on and spreading the dough and then turning it over on itself, being careful not to rip the dough. It should be smooth and elastic. Form it into a ball and place in a clean, oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 8 to 12 hours.

About 45 minutes before you want to bake, spread out the dough on a lightly floured counter and form into 2 logs. Cut each log into 6 equal pieces. You should have 12 pieces of dough that weigh about 2 ounces each; evenly distribute any leftover dough as needed.

Shape each piece into a ball. Let the balls rest for 30 minutes at room temperature under plastic wrap.

Place a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat; cover with a lid. (Alternatively, invert a wok over a burner for cooking on the underside of the wok.)

Liberally flour a work surface. Flatten a dough ball and dust it lightly with flour, then use a rolling pin to roll it out as thin as possible (7 to 9 inches in diameter), rotating the disk to keep it even.

Image: dough rolled out nearly paper thin.

When the skillet is smoking lightly, gently lift a disk of dough. Place it in the skillet and cover immediately. Cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute, then flip the dough. Cover and cook for 30 seconds. (If using an overturned wok, simply place the bread on top of the wok and flip it when ready.) The breads will bake in 2 minutes and should be blistered and dark in spots.

Remove the flatbread and cover with a towel or aluminum foil to keep it from crusting over. (Dot it with butter and fold it in half if you like). Serve warm. These can be made in advance and stored in a resealable plastic container.

Recipe adapted from Jeffrey Hamelman, a master baker and bakery director at King Arthur Flour.

This version was posted on my blog at ChewsWise.com

Image: Flatbread stuffed with beets, goat cheese and cilantro