Bread of the week - garlic flatbread

This is really easy and a great one to cook when you need something quick to go with dinner. It goes well with soups, pastas, casseroles etc.


With floured hands, pull about an orange sized chunk of dough* out of your container. Stretch and pull it into a rough circle (about 30cm in diameter) and put it onto a piece of baking paper. If you like you can flatten it out a bit more with your fingers, but I like it to have thicker and thinner areas and even some holes. This means you get some plump springy bits and some thin crunchy bits for texture.

Next pour some olive oil over the dough (I use a tablespoon or two). I subscribe to the Jamie Oliver school of thought about sometimes needing to use your hands when cooking, and here I find smoothing the oil over the surface with my fingertips distributes it best. Then crush some garlic over - 1 or 2 cloves, depending on how strong you like it and sprinkle with salt flakes.

Even though the original Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day recipe states that you should let the dough come to room temperature, I find that if I turn on the oven first, then take the dough out of the fridge and stretch it, it's had enough time to rest by the time the oven is up to temperature. You still get enough rise in the dough and it allows for last minute cooking, always a good thing!

Put it into the 220c preheated oven on the top shelf on a pizza stone if you have one (see my transfer method in this post), or alternatively a baking tray. Cook until it starts to go brown around the edges (5-10 minutes), but not til it's brown all over, which will be a bit dry and lifeless (she says from experience). You can see the nice variations in thickness in the pic above. It's a bit like a focaccia where you dimple the surface with your fingers so oil etc sits in the indents.


I like to cut it into squares with a pizza wheel. It's so quick and easy that you can cook a few if you need more for your meal.

* basic recipe listed on this post