Lavash at home - a recipe for various cakes. Useful tips and recipes for pita bread at home

“Let's eat bread” is what they say in Armenia when they are invited to have breakfast, lunch or dinner. The recipe for making Armenian lavash has its own characteristics.

The bread of many peoples is really the head, and the Armenian lavash is no exception. The foundation of the foundations, the beginning of the beginnings - that they just don’t cook from lavash, today it’s not only in the Caucasus! With what pleasure, despite the many delicious dishes, we eat sandwiches with lavash! How many snacks from it invented! Lavash cooking is varied, tasty, loved in many cuisines. And there are so many recipes for pita bread that it’s time to start collecting ...

Armenian lavash is just a kind of Armenian bread, the same as rural or matnakash. But besides, it is a common name for all flour cakes baked in an ancient Caucasian country with an amazingly tasty and capricious culinary tradition.

Fortunately, you can cook Armenian lavash at home, even if your kitchen is a thousand kilometers away from Armenia. And you can cook it in the most authentic way - almost the way Armenian bakers cook cakes. With the difference that we will have a conventional oven, and not a special oven.

A little about baking Armenian lavash

Armenian lavash is shaped like an oblong pancake up to 2 cm thick in the middle and up to 4 along the edges, almost a meter long and about 40 cm wide, it weighs about 450 grams. It has a bubbly surface and an uneven color due to this: it is pale itself, and the swellings are fried.

An interesting feature is that not yeast is used as a starter, but a piece of old dough, the so-called tthmore. The recipe for lavash is as follows: flour - 10 kg, water - 7-8 liters, salt - 170-230 grams and old dough - 130-180 grams.

They bake lavash in a tonir - a special oven (Georgians, who also bake lavash, call the oven "torne"). Before the cake gets on baking, the dough is stretched and straightened on a landing pillow, from which it is thrown into the oven. The process of “throwing” (literally) is very interesting: the baker hangs almost his whole body into the oven (and it is deep, most often partially dug into the ground) and with a deft movement sticks the cake to the wall of the oven.

As you can see from the traditional preparation of pita bread, a very high temperature is needed for baking, so set it in the oven to the maximum. Well, we don’t have the old dough, so we’ll just cook with yeast (by the way, you can cook without yeast at all).

Ingredients

• flour - 1 kg
• fresh yeast - 25 grams
• salt - 1 tbsp. spoon
• water - 2.5-3.5 cups

How to cook Armenian lavash at home

Dissolve yeast in warm water.

Sift flour into a large bowl, add salt and mix.

Make a well in the flour, pour in the diluted yeast.

Adding a little water, knead the dough.

At first, this can be done directly in the bowl, and then, if the bowl is not spacious enough, transfer the contents to the work surface and continue kneading.

Knead for 20 minutes. The dough should not stick to your hands, should not be steep. Put it back in the bowl, sprinkle with flour, cover with cling film, put in heat (it should double in size).

Lay out on a floured surface.

Divide the dough for pita bread into small balls, roll out thinly. You can give them an oval shape or round.

Bake on a baking sheet in an oven preheated to the highest possible temperature. You can also bake pita bread on fire in a cast-iron pan, turning from one side to the other.

Put the finished cakes in a bag so that they become soft.

Other types and recipes of Armenian lavash

From the same dough you can bake rural bread And matnakash . For both, you need to put a bun on a baking sheet greased with vegetable oil, flatten it into a flat cake, thick for bread and thin for matnakash. Lubricate with water.

MATNAKASH. For matnakash, apply grooves around the circumference and in the middle.

Bake products at t 220 until golden brown for 50 minutes.

RURAL BREAD. Poke a hole in the middle for the bread.

That's how golden it turns out.

If you haven't baked Armenian lavash at home, you can't even imagine how the kitchen smells!

And today, for the preparation of thick pita bread, kefir-soda or even yeast kneading techniques are increasingly being used, which makes it possible to obtain the most soft and fluffy bread at home.

Well, if you study the video on how real thin Armenian lavash is made, then such a kitchen will look more like a circus attraction! Women, throwing the cake from hand to hand, manage to bring the cake to the most thin and extensive state, after which they send the cake to the stone-clay oven with the help of special pillows.

It is rather difficult to repeat traditional technology at home without proper experience, so we will use the usual rolling pin for this purpose. Well, for the test, you can choose the recipe that you like.

1. How to make classic pita bread at home

Cooking thin lavash involves the maximum stretching of the dough to a very thin state, which is why the batch must be very plastic.

The easiest and best way is to knead the dough from flour and salt in boiling water with your own hands.

Such a mass turns out to be simply incredibly elastic, it does not tear, does not stick, and you can even roll it out to transparency.

Since traditionally Caucasian bread is cooked on fire, it is more reasonable and more correct to use gas and the widest frying pan, preferably cast-iron and thick-walled, as a similar system at home.

Or you can make pita bread yourself in the oven, but the main thing here is to choose the right recipe from the video and Your Cook is happy to help you with this:

2. Yeast method of making pita bread at home

In cooking, yeast dough allows you to achieve the greatest airiness and splendor of bread. Undoubtedly, such a skill of yeast mushrooms is not applicable to Armenian lavash, but Uzbek and Caucasian flat cakes will only gain from such a batch!

We offer you a selection of articles and step-by-step recipes with videos that will make it much easier for you to cook pita bread at home:

3. How to bake pita bread in the oven

The technology of frying thin pita bread in the oven at home has some features. It's not a secret for anyone that baked products dry out slightly in the oven; we owe this crispy crust to this factor. However, for thin lavash, such a prospect is deplorable, because in the end we will get not a soft thin cake, but a cracker!

To get the best pita bread of proper quality, immediately after baking, the finished cake should be sprinkled with water or well soaked in oil and wrapped with a damp cloth.

Each subsequent cake is stacked, and the final one is also wrapped in a damp towel. After cooling, pita bread becomes flexible and soft. For storage, roll them up and put them in a plastic bag.

Well, for a more detailed study of the issue of how to bake pita bread with the most delicious filling at home, we suggest studying our articles with detailed videos:

4. How to cook dietary pita bread at home

In the culinary environment, there are a great many original and quick recipes for dietary dishes using pita bread. However, not all dietary diets allow wheat flour products in their menu.

Especially for you, we have prepared a selection of step-by-step and video recipes for making diet pita bread at home in the oven and in the pan:

5. Puff pita bread at home

If you want to treat your family members with fresh bread with an emphasis on its originality, then this recipe “How puff pastry is made” will be the most relevant for you! Preparing this appetizing and very fragrant and tender cake is as easy as shelling pears.

1. From 500 g high-grade flour, warm water, 7 g dry yeast, ½ tbsp. salt and ½ tbsp. granulated sugar put a soft, plastic dough. When kneading, you should also use ½ tbsp. sunflower oil. Covered and leave the dough warm for 1 hour before rising.
2. In the meantime, prepare the melted butter. Melt 150 g of butter in a water bath and leave to cool slightly.
3. We roll out the dough that has come up into a thin layer and generously coat it with ghee, after which we turn it into a rather dense roll, and then we wind the resulting sausage with a “snail”. Cover the "snail" with a napkin and leave for 10-15 minutes.
4. After a quarter of an hour, we roll out the “snail” into a thin layer (5-7 mm) and bake puff bread in a dry hot frying pan until golden brown on one side, and then on the other side. Bubbles that appear during frying do not need to be pierced.

Such pita bread turns out to be very fragrant, tender and crumbly!

How to store pita bread at home

The quality of the finished lavash directly depends on the conditions of its storage. So, in the open form, the cake will quickly lose its elasticity and become dry and brittle, and following our rules, you can keep the product for a long time!

1. Temperature is very important for the preservation of lavash. 20-22 o C are the optimal indicators for storing lavash.
2. It is best to pack thin bread in linen and store it in a wooden bread box. So the freshness of the baked goods will last much longer.
3. Lavash should not be stored next to strong-smelling foods, as it quickly absorbs odors.
4. In the case of purchasing a slightly damp factory-made lavash, it is better to store it in the refrigerator on the top shelf in a vacuum film.
5. You can increase the shelf life of Caucasian bread with the help of a freezer. Wrap pita bread in vacuum film and freeze. And if necessary, put the cake in the microwave and heat for 10 seconds.
6. A water bath or a double boiler will also help to give freshness to pita bread after long-term storage. In just 3 minutes, pita bread will absorb steam and become soft again and suitable for any culinary purpose.

No one will argue that the national Caucasian bread - lavash is incredibly appetizing and tasty, but few people know the original recipe for making this flatbread at home.

We hope that a selection of our recipes will help you become a real ace in baking various pita breads!

Lavash is an unleavened dough that is baked in a pan and tastes like white bread. Puff pies, rolls, shawarma and even Napoleon cake are prepared from it. Or you can just cook a delicious pita bread with cheese and mushrooms or use it as bread. If such a dish is a curiosity for you and you have no idea how to cook it at home, we will reveal to you all the secrets of real Armenian lavash.

How to cook pita bread - basic cooking principles

• Thin lavash (Armenian) is baked in a very thin layer and looks like a paper sheet. It is prepared on unleavened dough without yeast and baking powder.
• Lavash is also baked in the form of flat cakes, but yeast and any fermented milk products are included in its recipe. In the traditional version, such pita bread is cooked in a tandoor (a kind of fire oven), but modern kitchen utensils are successfully used instead.
• The key to delicious lavash is excellent flour. It should be of the highest grade and double sieved. It is pre-mixed with water (kefir) and salt.
• Unleavened dough after kneading is always left for 20 minutes to make it more elastic. Yeast dough is aged for about an hour in a warm place so that its volume increases.
• The consistency of unleavened dough should be very dense. Since the bread is baked in a thin layer, it needs to be rolled out, and this is only possible if the dough is tough. And the yeast dough is made softer and more porous so that the yeast can rise.

How to cook Armenian lavash

This pita bread requires three simple products that are always on hand.

List of ingredients:

• Flour - 400 g.
• Salt - 2/3 tsp.
• Water (whey) - 225 g.

In addition, you need to prepare a mixer with nozzles in the form of spirals.

Cooking steps:

• Boil the water, dissolve the salt in it and let it cool down a bit (maximum 5 minutes).
• Take a deep bowl, pour pre-sifted flour into it and make a small funnel in it.
• Now pour hot water into the dough and use a mixer to knead the dough. The duration of mixing is 5-7 minutes. Then put the mixer aside and knead the dough with your hands for another 2 minutes.
• Shape the dough into a ball and wrap it in cling film. After 20 minutes, the gluten will swell and the dough will become soft.
• Next, divide the dough into 8 equal parts and roll each of them into a thin layer.
• Heat up a frying pan and fry the tortillas on both sides.
• Spread the pita bread on a wet kitchen towel, and also cover it on top so that it does not dry out and break.

How to cook Georgian lavash

This lavash differs from the Armenian lavash in the porous structure of the crumb, light saltiness and a delicate aroma of yeast.

Grocery list:

• Flour - 0.3 kg.
• Water - 0.2 l.
• Yeast (dry) - 1 tsp
• Salt and sugar - 1 tsp each.

How to cook:

• Combine the sifted flour and dry ingredients and mix.
• Make a well in the flour and pour warm water into it (the temperature should not be higher than 45⁰С).
• Knead a soft and not too sticky dough, leave it for 1 hour in a warm place.
• Shape the dough into small balls.
• From each kolobok, form a cake with your hands.
• On a greased baking sheet, lay out the cakes and make a depression in the middle of each product with your finger.
• Preheat the oven, and send a baking sheet there. Bake pita bread until cooked at a temperature of 220⁰С.
• Remove the pita from the oven and cover with a towel to cool. This will prevent the formation of a dense crust.

Lavash can be a great alternative to bread, besides, its shelf life can be up to 6 days. Bon appetit!

Calories: Not specified
Cooking time: Not indicated

Store-bought bread, pita bread and other pastries can never be compared with the home-made version of its preparation. In addition to the main advantages - quality and taste, there are many others, for example, the price of homemade cakes is several times less. Today we will tell you how surprisingly simple and quick you can make homemade pita bread for dinner. Such pita bread can also be stuffed with all kinds of salads, vegetables, meat products, cheeses, you can do it. If you have never baked pita bread and bread in your life, don’t let a drop of doubt overcome you, you will succeed one hundred percent, since the process is easy, and even a novice cook can handle it. Well, our recipe with a photo will tell you in detail how homemade pita bread is prepared without yeast in a pan.

Flour - 180-185 g,
- water - 100 ml,
- salt - a pinch,
- sunflower / olive oil - 2.5 ml.

Recipe with photo step by step:

We prepare a kitchen scale, measure exactly 180 grams of wheat flour in them, take 5 grams in reserve. We will also need the smallest sieve and a deep bowl - we sift the flour through a sieve, saturate it with oxygen and remove unnecessary lumps that we may come across, it is better to do this twice.




We throw a small pinch of salt into the sifted flour, also pour in a little oil, olive or ordinary sunflower will do. Mix lightly. In parallel, put a kettle with clean filtered water on the stove, boil.




We measure out exactly one hundred grams of boiling water, pour it into a bowl of flour, start mixing with a spoon so as not to burn our palms. After 7-10 seconds, the base will cool down a little, you can continue kneading with your hands. We usually knead the dough, as usual, pushing it away from us with the back of the hand.




After about a few minutes, we get an excellent dough - smooth, elastic, not a bit sticky to our hands.






We put a lump of dough in a bowl, cover with a film or a clean plastic bag, set aside for half an hour, give time to rest. While the dough is resting, you can come up with any filling and quickly cook it.




After half an hour, remove the bag, divide the ball of dough into parts.




We take a rolling pin, roll each blank into a thin layer, the dough is very pleasant, when rolling it does not even require additional flour. Simultaneously with rolling, put a dry clean frying pan on the stove, warm it up.




We put pita bread in turn in a hot pan, fry on both sides for 15-20 seconds.






Ready pita bread, directly from the pan, sprinkle with clean water from a spray bottle, or cover the pita bread with a towel soaked in cool water.




Ready-made homemade pita bread is elastic and pliable to twist.




Serve with various toppings and sauces.




Enjoy your meal!

To make it very thin, like a store? Many people ask this question. There are many recipes, but the product does not turn out so thin.

What is lavash?

Let's start in order. This is a thin unleavened flatbread, which is a traditional dish of the Caucasus. It is baked in an oven called tandoor. You don’t have such an oven in your apartment, but you can use a regular stove and a frying pan. For its preparation, only three components are used: flour, water and salt. If desired, just before cooking, it can be sprinkled with poppy seeds or sesame seeds. Professionally prepared pita bread can be stored for up to 6 months, and it must be sprinkled with water before use.

Lavash at home

Consider at home using yeast. To do this, we need the following ingredients: 180 ml of warm water, 500 grams of sifted flour (or a little more), 1/2 teaspoon (tea) of granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon (tea) of salt, 1 tablespoon (tablespoon) of vegetable oil, 1 spoon ( tea) yeast.

Cooking:

1. Dissolve the yeast in water, add vegetable oil, salt, granulated sugar. Gradually add flour and get an elastic dough. Knead for at least 2 minutes.

2. Lubricate the bowl with vegetable oil, shift the dough, cover it with a napkin and “forget” about it for 1 hour (you can set an alarm).

3. After an hour, the dough must be kneaded, divided into 10 parts, covered with a film and let lie down for another 5 minutes.

4. Take the largest frying pan in the house and heat it up (dry).

5. Sprinkle flour on the table. Take one piece and roll out a thin layer 1 mm thick. From this ideal and soft dough, pita bread will turn out without any hassle even for novice cooks.

6. Gently transfer the cake to the pan. The oven is very fast, literally seconds on each side.

7. Put the finished pita bread on a plate and immediately cover with a napkin. Store after cooling in a plastic bag. With this recipe, you will get thin pita bread at home. It is not subject to long-term storage.

The second recipe for making pita bread

You can make pita bread at home without using yeast. This recipe is close to the classic. For him, we need the following products: 130 ml of boiling water, 1/2 tablespoon of salt, 400 grams of flour, 2 tablespoons (tablespoons) of vegetable oil.

Sift flour. Dissolve salt in boiling water and add vegetable oil there. Knead the dough and roll out thin cakes. Bake in the same way as in the previous recipe.

Having prepared pita bread at home, wrap various fillings in it. They can be very diverse: stewed cabbage; mushrooms with onions; crab sticks with egg, herbs and mayonnaise; cottage cheese with herbs; chicken with vegetables and more. At the same time, the pita bread is soaked and acquires an amazing taste. With it, you can diversify your diet. He will always save if there is no bread in the house, since it can be baked quite quickly. Making pita bread at home is very simple. Good luck!