Flat Bread - Recipe

Good morning,

I had this post all together and ready to go for today as I was packing last night with my honey.  We are going out of town for awhile.  My computer goes wherever I go so I'll still be blogging, just from different places.

Anyway, here we both were on the second floor, in our own little worlds getting things together for our trip.  We do this every few weeks so it has become routine to pack the clothes and knitting needles, transfer the computer files.... Catherine, our daughter, had been at a dog show with our yellow Lab, Penny.  About 10:30 PM, Catherine called to say she and Penny were on the way home and asked me to put on a pot of coffee.  Sure, no problem.

I went down the main staircase and immediately was in shock and distress.  There, in the entrance hall and into the living room, Erik, our sweet year old black Lab had chewed open a new box of black printer ink.  He must have had a good time tearing the whole thing open because there was black ink everywhere on our medium blue carpet.   We couldn't see any on  him, but he is a black Lab dressed in black ink camouflage so of course we couldn't see any black ink. First I determined he didn't have ink in his mouth so he must have just punctured the ink cartridge and spent most of his time throwing it around the room and tearing up the cardboard box.  He's such a happy guy.

I love the Internet.  While I was checking Erik, my honey went on line to figure out what we could use to remove the ink that I was sure had destroyed our carpet.  Sure enough, he found a video explaining how to use WD-40, wait awhile, then clean (scrub) with detergent (I used Dawn) and warm water, then rinse.  Amazingly, it worked.  Catherine arrived to bring our carpet cleaner from the basement and gave the whole thing a good warm water rinse.

So, if anyone else has a problem with permanent ink on the carpet, before you suffer cardiac arrest, saturate it with WD-40, wait a few minutes, then scrub with some Dawn detergent in warm water and a sponge or rag.  It works.  I was too busy scrubbing to take any pictures to share, but they are burned in my mind and I am sure you can imagine the horror of it all:  Is Erik OK?  And, now that we know Erik is OK, what the heck can we do about the carpet....

After telling Erik how wrong it was to take the box of ink from the desk in the sitting room and spread it around the living room, we made up and had some cuddle time.  I have been calling Erik "Inky Erik" all day today.  

And, now, to the post I had prepared for today:

Today's bread is a favorite of my daughter's.  She likes flat bread to make sandwiches with the soft crust on top and bottom to keep fillings well contained.  She also likes to slice flat bread, cut into triangles, and toast on a cookie sheet in the oven to use with dip. 

For this particular batch I divided the recipe to make some flat bread and some as loaves to give as gifts.

In addition to being another way to eat good bread, an advantage of making flat bread is that you don't wait for the second rise so you can have it much sooner than waiting for bread made as loaves.

Making flat bread is getting close to making pizza crust.  That's also easy to make and I'll share that here soon, too.

The recipe below will yield two standard size loaves.  Directions are included for both the flat bread and loaves.

Enjoy!

Lois

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Flat Bread -  Recipe

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Ingredients:

2 eggs

2 T vegetable oil

2 t salt

2 T sugar

1/3 cup plain (or vanilla) yogurt

1 cup warm water

5 cups bread (or all purpose, but not self rising) flour

2 rounded t dry yeast

Place all ingredients in large capacity bread machine in order given.

Set on dough cycle and turn on.

The first dough cycle on most machines is about 40 minutes.

Watch the action to be sure a dough ball forms at least 1/3 way through the cycle.

Add a little flour or water if necessary to get the correct consistency.

When first dough cycle finished, remove from machine and place in a greased bowl for first rise.

Place the bowl in a warm place such as the oven with the light, but no heat turned on.

If you place it out on the counter in a warm place, cover with a damp cloth.

This batch required about 2 hours for the first rise. Keep in mind that the temperature in your kitchen and the mood of the yeast can change the time required for the dough to rise.

If you are using crockery or glass pans/bowls for baking, set the empty bread pans in a warm place, too. I use my second oven with the light turned on.

If preheating pans, remove from oven.

Spray pans with vegetable oil..

After the first rise, punch down/knead gently the dough to remove excess bubbles.

I divided this batch between flat bread and small loaves.

For the flat bread, grease or spray cookie sheets with vegetable oil, form a baseball size ball of dough in your hands, then flatten and place on cookie sheet.

Two balls this size should be right for a standard cookie sheet.

With fingers, gently spread/flatten it being careful not to tear the dough.

Using a large fork, poke holes into the dough to ventilate.

Bake immediately at 350 F for 35 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove from sheets immediately and place on rack to cool.

If making a split batch of flat bread and loaf bread:

With the remaining dough, divide for number of baking dishes you are using, shape to fit the pans, and place in bread pans.

Place in warm place again for second rise.

When it is finished rising the second time, bake at 350 F for 35 mins if using small pans similar to those in the images.

If using 2 standard loaf pans, bake at 350 F for 45 mins.

Remove from oven, turn out to cooling racks immediately.

The sandwiches in the image were made by cutting the round flat bread in quarters, then filling with seafood salad, lettuce, tomato, and sprouts. The oval shaped flat bread can be cut lengthwise, then split to make two larger pocket sandwiches.

Yum!

Click here for more of my bread recipes.

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 Norpro Stainless Steel 10 Inch x 15 Inch Baking Sheet

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