COOK: Flatbread

If you’ve been following for a while you probably know that we love our carbs, and our cheese. (Bacon is a close third.)  With this easy recipe you can have both in a few different ways!  (You can also eat the flatbread without cheese, but then your poor cheese will feel left out!)

There are a lot of different versions of flat bread, I’ll tell you what this is not: pita bread, naan bread, tortilla, or pancake.  What this is; a simple and easy recipe for a bread that is flat, good for dipping, making a fun pizza, eating with something spread on it (peanut butter, hazelnut spread, hummus…).

If you are nervous about making homemade bread, new to baking, don’t have a fancy mixer, this is a great bread to start with.  (Hand mixing directions will be below the stand mixer directions.)

Tips: If you buy Active Dry Yeast in the packets, each one has 2 1/4 teaspoons, if you are only using 1 teaspoon you can store the remainder in a sealed jar in the fridge.

Flatbread

Ingredients:

2 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour

1 teaspoon Active Dry Yeast

1 teaspoon Salt

1 Cup Hot Water

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil (plus more to coat the bowl)

Preparation:

In the bowl of a stand mixer, with a dough hook, combine flour, yeast, and salt, turn on to start mixing, add olive oil to hot water and slowly pour in while mixer is running.  Stop and scrape down sides of bowl if needed so everything starts to combine.  If dough is sticking to the sides and bottom and not turning into a ball add a bit more flour, about a Tablespoon at a time.  

Once dough has reached ball stage let the mixer continue for 5 minutes.  Remove dough ball, add a bit of olive oil to the bowl, put in dough ball and swirl so all of the ball is covered, then cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour, until doubled in size.

Turn dough out onto a clean counter and cut into 4-8 pieces.  (If we are doing flatbread pizzas I cut the dough into 4 pieces, it makes about 4 10 inch pieces, but you can make smaller pieces depending on how you will use it). Let your pieces set under a piece of plastic wrap to set for about 10 minutes. Heat up a cast iron pan, griddle, Blackstone, or thick bottomed frying pan. I set my stove top to medium/medium-low, or 350 degrees on an electric griddle or Blackstone, do not add any oil.

Roll dough out very thin, it will plump up a bit while cooking, it can be any shape (this is my favorite thing, because I cannot roll anything out into circles, but different shapes can be fun!).  Put rolled out piece of dough onto hot flattop, cast iron, etc.  Dry fry for about 2-3 minutes per side, the bubbles will turn a bit brown, and the rest of the dough will turn a light off white.  Once done put on a wire rack to cool.

Once cooled the flat bread can be stored in a sealed container in a cool, dry, space for about a week.

Hand Mix Directions:  Mix all ingredients with a wooden spoon until mostly combined, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and continue to mix until it forms a ball, then kneed by hand for at least 8 minutes until dough is soft and a bit elastic.  Put into oiled bowl, and continue with directions from above.

Flatbread Pizza: If we are making pizzas we add our sauce, a bit of cheese, toppings of our choice, and more cheese.  If using an oven bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes. We put them on a cookie sheet, but if you want a crispier crust put them right on the over rack.  On the Blackstone we cover them and cook for (Some sort of time, I’ll ask KC, he’s the Blackstone chef!)

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