Flat Bread

This recipe comes from this site, which is my favorite recipe site. Besides the fact that she uses way too much cream, her recipes are right up my alley, and they're generally easy and down to earth. I don't have time for fancy ingredients or recipes that take 6 hours to prep, or are super fussy recipes. So this site is where I've gotten a lot of my ideas lately and I love it. I love Greek food, so when she posted about this flat bread, I knew I had to make gyros (pronounced like Euros.) I'll post the flat bread recipe today, and the recipe for the gyros filling tomorrow. This bread was good with the gyros as well as with honey butter (I'm a total copycat!) And I think they would be good as simple, mini pizzas as well, if there were left overs, which there weren't when I made them!

Soft Wrap Bread

From King Arthur Flour

Make about 8-9 breads (I 1 1/2ed the recipe so it made 12 breads. We had company, and there were only 3 left over)

3 to 3 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1/4 cup potato flour OR 1/2 cup potato flakes (I used potato flakes because they're cheaper)

1 1/4 tsp salt

2 TBSP vegetable oil

1 tsp instant yeast

Place 2 cups of the flour into a bowl or the bucket of a bread machine (I used my Bosch). Pour the boiling water over the flour, and stir until smooth. Cover the bowl and set aside for 30 minutes.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the potato flour (or flakes) and 1 cup of the remaining flour with the salt, oil and yeast. Add this to the cooled flour/water mixture, stir, then knead for several minutes (by hand, mixer or bread machine) to form a soft dough.

You can allow the dough to go through the entire kneading cycle in the bread machine, but it's not necessary, about a 5-minute knead in the machine, once it gets up to full kneading speed, is fine. The dough should form a ball, but will remain somewhat sticky (the dough is fairly stiff, so don't be worried, just be careful not to over flour the dough). Add additional flour only is necessary; if kneading by hand, keep your hands and work surface lightly oiled (I didn't add any more flour to mine). Let the dough rise, covered, for 1 hour (I think it needs more like 2 hours to rise).

Divide the dough into 8 pieces (each about the size of a handball), cover, and let rest for 15 to 30 minutes. Roll each piece into a 7-8 inch circle and dry-fry them (fry without oil) on a griddle or frying pan over medium heat for about 1 minute per side (I used my cast iron frying pan, and it worked like a charm), until they're puffed and flecked with brown spots. Adjust the heat if they seem to be cooking to quickly which means they may be raw in the center, while too slowly will dry them out. Transfer cooked breads to a wire rack, stacking them to keep them soft (I put the on a plate and covered them with a towel.) Serve immediately.

This recipe took a lot of time, but not too much work. And it's definitely worth it. I love pita bread/flat bread, but I hate the stale, cardboardy stuff that they sell in the grocery store. This is a nice alternative. I bet you could even freeze them and then use them as needed (I like to keep pita bread in the freezer and take one out for my lunch or when we're having burgers and I have a veggie burger).