Recipes

Bread week, day 3: I say Lavosh, you say Lavash

Lavosh_5

Lavosh/lavash. Know aliases: cracker bread, lawaash, paraki, Armenian cracker bread, lahvosh, lawasha, naan-e-lavaash. But it’s moniker isn’t important. In the words of William Shakespeare, this cracker by any other name would taste as good.

Joelen at What’s Cookin’ Chicago recently made Lavosh, and after finding out that the recipe is included in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice (and in fancy restaurant bread baskets everywhere), I decided that it counts towards day three of bread week.

Rosemary  and Parmesan Garlic Lavosh Crackers

(adapted from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice)

You’ll need:

1 1/2 cups bread flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon instant yeast

1 tablespoon honey (I substituted corn syrup)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/3 to 1/2 cup water, room temperature

coarse salt, fresh ground pepper, garlic powder, rosemary, white pepper, shredded parmesan for topping

Mix all the ingredients minus the spices and parmesan for topping.

Knead for about 10 minutes. I learned another trick for checking dough doneness, in addition to the finger-poke test: if you can strech the dough without tearing it (in moderation, of course), it’s ready. This is called the “windowpane test.”

Let the dough rise in an oiled bowl covered with cling wrap until it has doubled in size. This should take about an hour and a half.

Lay out greased parchment paper on your work surface. Roll out the dough on the parchment until it is as thin as you can get it. I had to cut mine in half in order to fit the dough in two sheet pans.

Lavosh dough

Lavosh Dough_2

It should look like this:

Lavosh Dough_3

Put the dough, parchment and all, on sheet pans, spray with water and top with spices. You can get really creative here. I used freshly grated parmesan, fresh ground pepper, course salt and garlic powder for one, and rosemary, fresh ground pepper, white pepper, course salt and a few drizzles of olive oil for the other.

Then cut your dough into the desired shape. This is optional—you can always break it up into pieces after it bakes.

Lavosh Dough_5

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. Some of my thinner pieces cooked faster, so I pulled them out a little early.

Lavosh

It turned out great—crunchy, spicy and flavorful. This would be great with soft cheese (actually, any cheese) and of course, say it with me now, “Butter!”

Lavosh_4

Lavosh_3

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