Monday, June 21, 2010

Perfect Summer Bread: Grilled Flatbread

Grilled flatbread

I love baking my own bread the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day way, as I've rhapsodized about before. But when we're in the midst of a string of 90+ degree days, it's hard to get my head around having the oven on for nearly an hour. Thankfully, that problem is solved with what has got to be the easiest way yet to bake ABin5 dough: right on the grill.

Full tutorial and instructions are found on the Artisan Bread in Five website (which is an absolute wealth of information, if you've never checked it out), but here's my own take:

1. Dust a pizza peel with flour.

Flour-dusted pizza peel

2. Grab a ball of dough roughly the size of a peach, shape it into a ball to form a gluten cloak, then flatten with your fingers into a disk.

Ball of dough to roll

3. Roll out directly onto the pizza peel.

Rolled dough

4. Slide directly onto your preheated gas grill, on medium-high heat (high gave me too much char), and close the lid.

Right on the grill

5. Cook about two minutes, then flip over with a spatula. Close the lid again.

Flipped over

6. Cook another two minutes or so, and ta-da!

Finished flatbread

Scrumptious, fast, and outdoors. What could be better?

A note on the dough used for these particular flatbreads: I've been playing around with the various dough recipes in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Sometimes I find myself out of a particular kind of flour and having to make substitutions. Quite by accident (seriously, I let myself run out of two different kinds of flour, what baker does that?), I happened upon the following combination, which resulted in a deliciously chewy yet earthy flavor. I will do this one again, even when I've resupplied my flour jars!

1 1/2 Tbsp yeast
1 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
3 cups lukewarm water
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 cup rye flour

The bread flour seems to balance out the whole grains in the white whole wheat and the rye. I've also found this dough to be a little easier to work with (a bit less sticky than standard ABin5 dough), and to hold its shape well. A successful experiment!

Now get grillin'....

1 comment:

  1. Oh my - great photos AND great info about homemade wheat bread recipes and tips! My daughter loves that book. I'll have to send her the link to this and see if she wants to give it a try as well. I remember making flour tortillas years ago, plus loaves of bread. But we never have tried the grill. Sounds like fun! Thank you :)

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