One of my shocks here in Canada, even now after more than 20 years of living here, is bad breads! Really bad breads available almost everywhere! It's baffling and sad, at the same time, to see one of the biggest producers of Wheat, Barely and other grains is the maker of one of the worst different types of bread that you can possibly eat!! There're so many different bakeries and producers all around the country but the majority of them that I've tried are awful! They are both bad in terms of taste and ingredients. Not to mention the devastating environmental affects that mostly have! They add so much shit to the damn breads that you can keep it at home, probably up to two months! Not that I ever have tried. Besides, many of the sliced breads have loads of sugar! How can you make a good sandwich, say, Chicken Sandwich, with a sweet bread! Most of the breads are made with White Flour which is not only bad for the digestion system but only contains more sugar which gradually and naturally leads to diabetes. In addition to all of the above, these greedy and careless bread companies use tremendous amount of plastic in their daily production. All these plastic bags get accumulated and becomes part of the problem that the entire world has faced: Plastic!
With all the above said, I have stopped buying the damn, disgusting breads of different kinds long time ago. What I did first was purchasing a Bread Maker and then today, for the first time I tried Whole Wheat Flat Bread in a frying pan! The result was not so bad for the first time but I think it becomes costly. I used to purchase a bag of Pita Bread, Shamsane (I'm not Arab! Neither is the owner of the bakery) brand for only $2.5 and that is only available in Kalamata Grocery store in Downtown Calgary but that is too far away from me now. Mom, at times, when she visits me, she brings me a bag or two but I don't want to trouble her. Other stores and brands are either bad or unreasonably expensive. I show how to make such bread and you can eat that with everything. You can make Chicken and Stake Sandwich or use for any other things that you like. It's just simply stupid, really stupid to think that Flat Bread (or Pita some like to call it) is only good with certain foods which comes from the same area that the Flat Bread comes!! Nevertheless this is what you need to make Flat Bread and this ingredients are for, I would say 10, breads but it would depend on how big you make the dough balls:
1) 4 cups Whole Wheat Flour. I use Robin Hood brand but it's up to you.
2) 1 tablespoon Brown Sugar. I believe the sugar, when gets mixed with water, helps the yeast to work better and faster.
3) 1 tablespoon Slat. If you want your bread salty, you can add more because this much doesn't do anything! I wonder why it was in the original recipe that I have found. I might add more or eliminate completely, the next time I'm making bread.
3) 1 tablespoon Active Dry Yeast. This certainly a must unless you use Baking Soda and Baking Power, each the same amount
4) 1 tablespoon Olive Oil or any good(!) vegetable oil. Try to avoid the damn processed oils but I know it's hard and could be expensive. There're lots of fake oils in the market which are offered with statements such as " healthy ", " Extra virgin " or " no cholesterol "!!
5) 2 cups of water. Better be in the temperature range of 18 ℃ to 21℃ (64 ℉ to 70 ℉). The intent of mentioning this range is to make sure not too cold or too hot water is used.
These are the tools and utensils needed:
1) Big bowls (you need two)
2) Measuring cup (I have three which make my job much easier because I don't have to wash and dry one to measure something else!)
3) Tea Towel
4) Frying pan
5) Spatula or tongue (not Thong!)
6) Rolling Pin
7) Parching paper
8) Knife (a butter knife or
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| My Whole Wheat Bread using my amazing Black+Decker Bread Maker. It's so good that you like to eat it as snack because I add walnut and raisin as you can see. It certainly not a cheap bread! |
Now you have everything ready, this is what your going to do:
1) Mix all the ingredients in one of the bowls, very well.
2) Knead for at least 8 minutes in the same bowl.
3) Oil the other bowl and transfer the dough. Oil the tough all around.
4) Cover with a tea towel and set aside for 1 to 1.5 hours. You can use cellophane. I left it aside for 1 hour only and the result was not bad. Some bakers have recommended 1.5 hours and I think it all depends on the ingredients. Least limit it to 1 hour only!
5) Take the dough out, after the hour is passed, dust your counter top and roll with hand in a shape that you get a long cylinder and then cut that to 10 pieces.
6) Then make balls out of those 10 pieces, dust them with flour and keep them under your tea towel for 10 minutes.
7) At this point you are going to turn the balls to, first, small and then bigger circles, using your hand and a rolling pin. This part requires practice to be able to make all the pieces the same size. So if you can't do it the first time, don't get disappointed or mad at yourself!
8) You're going to have to leave this unbaked, circular and thin dough pieces on a parching paper (you need long enough for all) and cover them with your tea towel.
9) After you make 10 flat bread pieces as described above, you are going to have to leave them for another 20 minutes or even 30! It might sound nuts but that's how the dough is prepared for a good baking.
10) After 25 minutes is passed you put your frying pan and turn the stove up, all the way passed half. This 5 minutes to the 30 minutes holding of the previous stage helps you to have a hot pan and then you put the dough in the middle and watch it closely. At this point you are looking for puffs! The bread is puffing and coming up and you need to flip carefully to make sure that while your bread isn't turned to a small charcoal(!), it doesn't get punctured! Keep flipping until both sides are brown and puffs are seen. If the bread does not inflates from inside, it doesn't necessarily mean it's not baked. It just indicated that you cannot use it as a " Pocket " to make your sandwich that way. It still is the same healthy and delicious bread. getting the perfect colour and puff in the first time is not easy. It, again requires, practice. You also need to play with your stove a little bit to avoid overheating the pan. This comes to you after a few times baking this bread.
11) Keep the baked breads in a plate and covered with tea towel until they cool down. They will be ready after a few minutes. I usually transfer the store-bought or the machine-made (my own machine) breads to either a bag or a tupperware and keep in the refrigerator. This is what I'm going to do with mine tonight, as well.
12) I read once somewhere that you can use your oven instead of a pan. You put them on a tray and bake for 5 minutes in an appropriately pre-heated oven! I haven't tried that because it would be hard to bake all the 10 at once and you need to open the door and get exposed to the extreme heat. I also think it consumes more electricity. So I'm not even sure whether I would try it the next time I, baking or not but you give it a try and let me know.
At the end remember that you don't need no video or picture to understand how this baking is done! We're not sending a spacecraft to Venus! It's just a piece of bread that you will enjoy and you will master it after the 3rd or maximum 4th try. The only thing you need to consider, now that you have everything explained to you is the time which you need the fresh bread? The whole process, from making the ingredients and tools ready to baking, plus the required pauses in between might take up top 3 hours! So if you need to serve your lunch at 13:00, you will have to start at 10:30, the latest, considering you have everything ready at home.
(Photo, top: My first batch of bread. As you can see they are not all the same size but the taste came out really good)
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