Flatbread dough

Flatbread dough

Make perfect flatbreads with our go-to dough recipe. It’s wet enough to puff up nicely in the oven but not so wet that you’re fighting with a sticky dough. It will happily sit in your fridge for a few days and freezes well, and you can cook it in a regular oven or a pizza oven.

Flatbread dough

Use the versatile dough to make Tom’s Turkish-style lamb flatbreads

  • Serves icon Makes 6
  • Time icon Prep time 30 min, plus overnight first proving and minimum 2 hours second proving

Make perfect flatbreads with our go-to dough recipe. It’s wet enough to puff up nicely in the oven but not so wet that you’re fighting with a sticky dough. It will happily sit in your fridge for a few days and freezes well, and you can cook it in a regular oven or a pizza oven.

Use the versatile dough to make Tom’s Turkish-style lamb flatbreads

Nutrition: Per dough ball

Calories
456kcals
Fat
1.3g (0.1g saturated)
Protein
16g
Carbohydrates
95g (no sugars)
Fibre
0g
Salt
3.8g

Before you start

Easy swaps  ‘00’ flour is finely ground Italian flour. It’s widely available but you can use strong white bread flour if you want. If you can’t get fine semolina, you can oil the tray/ bowls instead. I use olive oil for Mediterranean flatbreads and vegetable oil for the rest, as it won’t affect the flavour.

The double baking tray trick A baking stone will give you the crispest base but if you don’t have one you can put 2 baking trays on top of each other to absorb more heat.

Before you start

Easy swaps  ‘00’ flour is finely ground Italian flour. It’s widely available but you can use strong white bread flour if you want. If you can’t get fine semolina, you can oil the tray/ bowls instead. I use olive oil for Mediterranean flatbreads and vegetable oil for the rest, as it won’t affect the flavour.

The double baking tray trick A baking stone will give you the crispest base but if you don’t have one you can put 2 baking trays on top of each other to absorb more heat.

Ingredients

  • 510g lukewarm water
  • 1g (¼ tsp) fast-action dried yeast
  • 784g ‘00’ flour
  • 24g sea salt flakes
  • Fine semolina to dust
Sticky screen? No thanks! Tap to prevent your screen from going off while cooking.

Method

  1. Put the water and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Use a fork to mix in the yeast (don’t worry if there are a few lumps on top). Add half the flour, use the fork to roughly mix it into the water, then add the rest and sprinkle the salt on top.
  2. Knead at a low speed for 6 minutes until there are no dry patches and a dough has formed. Turn off the motor, leave uncovered for 10 minutes, then knead again for 6 minutes at a low-medium speed until smooth and springy to the touch. Cover the bowl and leave to prove overnight at room temperature.
  3. The next day, knock the dough back, pushing out the air and pulling it away from the sides of the bowl. Dust a large tray with semolina (see Easy Swaps). Weigh out 220g dough, then bring the dough into a ball. Use your fingers to tuck the dough under itself over and again, stretching the top until it forms a smooth, taut ball. The dough will be sticky at first, but the more you fold, the drier and easier to work with it will become.
  4. Put the dough ball, seam-side down, on the semolina-dusted tray. Repeat until all 6 balls are formed, then cover. You can now either leave the tray for 2 hours at room temperature, then start a flatbread recipe, or store your doughballs (see tips, below).
  5. To stretch the flatbread, dust a work surface with fine semolina (or plain flour). Put one of the puffy balls of dough seam-side up on the work surface. Use your fingers to push the centre of the ball flat, teasing out the dough evenly but without squishing down the edges. Pick up the base and, still avoiding the edges, hold the dough up and rotate it in your hands, allowing gravity to stretch it out thinner. You should be able to get it so thin it’s translucent, with a puffy ring around the outside (called the ‘cornicione’ in Italian pizza-making).
  6. To cook your flatbreads in a conventional oven, heat the oven as hot as it will go with a baking stone on a tray inside (or see The double baking tray trick, above). You want the cooking surface as hot as possible, so leave it in for about 45 minutes. When you’re ready to cook, use a pizza peel to put the topped flatbreads on the stone to cook for 8-12 minutes, depending on how hot the oven is. If you don’t have a pizza peel, carefully take the hot stone and tray out of the oven, put the bread on top then, as quickly as you can, add the toppings before returning it to the oven.
  7. To cook the flatbreads in a pizza oven, fire it up and aim to get it to 450°C – at this temperature it will cook flatbreads in about 2 minutes.

Nutrition

Nutrition: per serving
Calories
456kcals
Fat
1.3g (0.1g saturated)
Protein
16g
Carbohydrates
95g (no sugars)
Fibre
0g
Salt
3.8g

delicious. tips

  1. Storing your dough balls You can keep the dough balls, wrapped or covered in the fridge, for up to 2 days. Let them come to room temperature for at least 2 hours before continuing with the recipe. You can wrap and freeze dough balls before their second prove for up to 2 months. Unwrap and leave to defrost for 8 hours at room temperature. They will undergo their second prove as they defrost.

    Getting the ratios right Many bread doughs focus on ‘hydration’ – the ratio of water to flour. A 60% hydrated dough, for example, would have 600g water to 1kg flour. My flatbread dough is 65% hydrated (510 is 65% of 784) giving 6 x 220g dough balls. There’s a brilliant free app called PizzApp, which is a calculator that tells you exactly how much flour, water, salt and yeast you need. It’s a great tool if you want to play around with the hydration levels or proving technique until you find a dough that suits you best.

Buy ingredients online

Recipe By:

Tom Shingler
Head of food, delicious.

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