High speed bread!

This is exciting!  After making flatbreads the other day, I was initially thinking: yeah, this is awesome, we can make these any old night, they don't take long.  Then I thought about it a bit more and realised that realistically, for a weeknight supper, even a 40 minute rising time just isn't going to cut it...

Then, somewhere on the internet, I stumbled across this method (also here).  It's a no-knead, minimal rising time bread method - absolute minimum effort.  You just mix up the dough, leave it at room temp for a few hours, then either use it right away or (this is the best bit) transfer it to the fridge and keep it there for up to 2 weeks, using it as and when you need it, with just a little resting time required for oven-baked loaves.  Sounded amazing - too good to be true?!

So I decided to try it out - I mixed up a batch one evening last week and this morning (~3 days after the initial mix making) I decided to make the bread: the quantity I'd mixed up should have been sufficient for 2 loaves, so I used half for a loaf baked in the oven, and made instant za'atar flatbreads out of the other half.

(NOTE: I usually make half the quantity below at a time, which is enough for 2 good sized pizzas and a couple of flatbreads, or 3-4 pizzas, or a couple of batches of flatbreads - this seems to be our usual intake over the couple of weeks the dough is good for)

1 1/2 tbsp dry yeast (3 tbsp / 25 g fresh yeast)
1 1/2 tbsp salt
6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (+more for dusting)
3 cups lukewarm water
cornmeal

In a large bowl, mix yeast, salt and water. Then mix in the flour, just until there are no dry patches. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature for 2 to 5 hours.

Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks.

For a small loaf:
(takes ~2 hour 10 min)
Cut off a grapefruit-size piece (~1/4 of the total quantity) with a sharp knife. Stretch in hands to make a small oval with a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Sprinkle baking tray with cornmeal, then put the shaped dough on it. Let rest for 40 minutes (or an hour and 40 min if dough refrigerated). Meanwhile, heat the oven to 450F. Put an ovenproof dish of water in the bottom of the oven. When ready to bake, slash the top of the loaf three times with a sharp knife. Sprinkle with flour or za'atar or seeds. Put the tray in the oven and bake for ~30 min, until browned and sounding hollow when tapped. Allow to cool before eating.

For flatbreads:
(takes only the time needed to roll out and cook the breads = 5-7 min per flatbread; this made about 6 so about 35 min)
Cut off a satsuma sized piece of dough (for small ones - use more for bigger ones). Flour a surface and rolling pin well, then roll out the dough piece into an approximate circle about 2 mm thick. Coat one side of the rolled out piece with a little olive oil (or could use veg oil, or marg). Heat a frying pan, then place the prepared dough piece oil side down in it. Cover and cook for about 2.5 minutes on that side, then flip (optionally sprinkle new top side with za'atar, salt, seeds, similar), cover and cook about 2.5 minutes on the other side. Keep warm while you cook more lumps of dough the same way, until you have the desired number of flatbreads.

Note: for garlic naan, while you are preparing the flatbreads as above, melt about 1 tbsp butter and 1/2 chopped garlic clove per flatbread together in the microwave or in a pan. Pour / spread a tbsp of mixture per bread as soon as it is cooked. Great with curry.

For pizza:
(takes only the time needed to shape dough, followed by about 20 min in the oven)
Put the oven on to heat to 400F, and put a pizza stone or cast iron in if you have one. Grab an orange sized piece of dough. Flour a clean surface generously, then squash, pull and roll the dough into the desired shape. Aim for a thickness of approx. 0.7cm - we have found that too thin ends up rather crispy-crunchy while too fat ends up a little doughy - no big deal if it's a bit off through, totally edible in any form. If using pizza stone, lay a piece of parchment paper big enough to fit the pizza base onto a flat, movable surface (large chopping board or upside down baking tray), then put the dough on top. If using a normal baking tray just move the dough directly to the baking tray. Arrange sauce and toppings on top of the base, then put straight in the oven for the baking tray, or slide together with the paper onto the hot stone if doing it that way. Bake for ~20 min, until lightly browned.


The flatbreads were brill, definitely a great anytime quick recipe and a great summer recipe as it is bread without oven. The za'atar sprinkled on top made them extra tasty (think I am having another za'atar moment). Pizza works similarly well.

The bread came out less well, but that is probably because I missed the bit about resting it for 1 hour 40 min and only rested it for 40 min (this was the recommendation if you're using a pizza stone: I don't have one).  It's tasty and edible, just the crumb is a bit dense and the loaf is therefore a bit small. Hmm, an hour and 40 min is a bit long...

S and I ate all the flatbreads for a Sunday breakfast (he had ~4 1/2, I had ~1 1/2). Meanwhile, I let the loaf rise, then baked it and also mixed up a new batch to put in the fridge. This seemed like quite a good combination / approach - instant bread plus bread for a bit later plus bread for sometime in the next 2 weeks, all in the same kitchen session.

Edit: I've been making flatbreads a lot, and experimenting with rolling stuff in the middle (in the style of these) - did some with za'atar and nigella seed, and some with some cooked spelt berries I had in the fridge - the former were fine but not really worth the bother when you can just sprinkle on top instead, the latter were a bit random in original thought but were actually really good - made the white-flour flatbread into a chunkier, more texturally interesting wholegrain version with very little bother.