Kefir flat-bread or fat-bread Recipe

Kefir Flat-bread or Fat-bread Recipe

Really this is a pizza dough with some of the water replaced with milk kefir.  You can use dairy or non dairy milk kefir, though I think cow’s gives the best flavour.  Adding the kefir gives tangy flavour to the bread in a short space of time, with added fluffiness and sourdough type holes, especially evident with the Fat breads.  

Fat bread, flat bread or pizza –  all from the same dough, it just depends how you roll and cook them.  There’s nothing tricky about it and if you’ve a bread machine even less effort is involved.

The Fat breads are almost like muffins, with a slightly chewy exterior and soft insides.  They are quite plump and you don’t want them to have raw middles; they expand and cook most thoroughly with direct bottom heat via a hot pan, and when covered with a lid.  I use a frying pan with a dome over, but you could use a cast iron pot, or put a baking sheet over a frying pan.  Anything to trap the heat in.  I’ve tried them in our Ooni pizza oven but it’s a bit too hot and theyr’e a bit too small with a tendency to catch fire!  For flat breads, roll out to about 1/2 cm thick and cook on a pizza stone in a hot oven, or in a barbecue.  For a pizza, let the dough come to room temp, then cut into five pieces and shape before treating as usual.

Milk kefir dough recipe

350g White Bread or 00 flour

150g Seeded, Wholemeal, or multigrain flour (for diet diversity, or add more white)

60g milk kefir (old “ripe” kefir is best for flavour)

10g salt

1 tsp yeast

290g warm water

Either put all the ingredients in your bread machine and use the pizza dough setting, or put dry ingredients in a bowl and gradually add the warm water and kefir to make a dough – stirring with a spoon until you need to use your hands to bring together.  Knead 10 mins and leave covered until doubled in size.  This will take a good couple of hours. 

The dough is easier to manipulate at room temperature.  Remove from the bowl/bread machine and put on a floured surface. stretch out into a regular shape that you can easily cut into 5 pieces for pizza, 8 pieces for fat breads, or up to 12 for flatbreads. 

Fatbreads

For fatbreads It’s important that the dough remains as unfolded as possible, as folded bits don’t seem to rise as well.  You can see this in the picture below - the one on the right is suffering from a few folds. 

Take the individual pieces, and using your hands and/or fingers, gently flatten them into either rounds or ovals 1.5 cm thick.  Don’t rush this, as they rise up so much better if you don’t flatten them to death and squeeze all the air out. Let them sit to puff up a bit for 15 mins.  

Meanwhile, put on your pan so it gets really hot.  When you’re ready to cook, turn down the heat to medium.  Make sure the bottom of the dough is well floured as this prevents it from sticking and burning.

Put 2 -4 breads depending on pan size onto the hot surface and cover.  Peep in after 3 mins and see how they’re doing.  If they’re massively puffed up and looking dry on top, check the bottom to see if it’s cooked (dark brown) and turn over for another approx. 2 mins.  If they get a bit burned it actually adds to the flavour.

When done, leave to cool for at least 10 mins so they’re not dough-y when you try them.  They freeze well, or are ok for a day or two wrapped in a tea towel.  Perfect for kimcheese toasties, toasted with kefirdelphia cheese and raspberry jam, or with any soup and a sandwich combo.

Flatbreads

Put a pizza stone or metal baking tray into the oven on a high setting, about 250 ^oC and let it heat up.

Roll each piece of dough with a rolling pin to about 0.5 cm thick on a well floured surface (about 20 cm long and 10 cm wide is a good shape)

Remove the tray from the oven, put on the flatbreads a few at a time and return to oven pronto.  Cook for 3-5 mins until the breads have puffed up and are golden.  Wrap in a tea towel.

Pizza

Shape into a sort of circle ( I’ve finally learned that the dough needs to be neither too warm nor too cold) and make pizza!  Hot pizza stone in oven, barbecue or pizza oven is the way forward.