Delicious tangy sourdough flatbreads aren’t at all difficult to make. You can use the same dough to make tortilla style flatbreads cooked on the stove or pitta breads baked in the oven. Both have great texture and flavour and the pitta pockets open up beautifully.
The night before baking the bread, mix the rye flour with 450ml of warm water in a large bowl. Add the sourdough starter and stir well. Cover loosely with a plastic bag and leave to ferment overnight.
75 g rye sourdough starter, 225 g wholemeal rye flour
In the morning remove 75g of the ferment into a covered glass jar and place in the fridge until the next time you need a sourdough starter.
To the remaining ferment, add the wholemeal and white flours, salt and olive oil. Knead in a stand mixer for ten minutes. The mixture is quite wet, so it's a bit more difficult to do by hand, but entirely possible.
250 g strong wholemeal flour, 250 g strong white bread flour, 1 ½ tsp sea salt, 2 tbsp olive oil
Cover loosely with a plastic bag, plate or tea towel, ensuring nothing touches the dough and leave to prove at room temperature for at least one hour. Two hours is better.
If you're making pitta breads, turn the oven on to 220℃ (425℉, Gas 7). Place the baking tray inside the oven to heat up.For tortilla style breads, heat a cast iron or non-stick pan over a medium high heat.
Divide the dough into sixteen balls and roll them on a floured board as required. The dough can be a bit sticky, so flour your board and rolling pin well.For a tortilla style flatbread, you want to roll them into thin round disks that will fit your frying pan or hot plate. A diameter of 18 cm (7 ½ ") is about right.Pitta bread needs to be smaller and a bit thicker. About 4-5 mm in thickness or just under ¼ inch. Traditionnally they are oval shaped, but go for circles of you prefer.
For pittas, place onto the hot tray, spacing well apart and bake in the oven for 5-8 minutes or until the breads are puffed up and have just started to colour.For tortillas, place one on the hot pan and bake for 2-3 minutes or until the bread has puffed up a little and the bottom looks cooked. Flip and cook the other side for a couple of minutes. Wrap in a tea towel to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining flatbreads. It's easiest to roll the second one as you cook the first one and so on. You're less likely to run out of space that way and you'll speed up the process too.
Notes
You know your own starter best. I use a rye sourdough starter, so the quantities for refreshing it are the ones I've given here. But please adjust as necessary to suit your own starter.Cooking time will depend on whether you're baking pitta breads or cooking tortilla style breads on the stove top. The pittas can all be baked at once in the oven and as they only take between five to eight minutes, they're very quick. But wraps have to be cooked one by one, so they take a fair bit longer.You’ll find additional tips and info about this recipe in the main body of the post.Please note: calories and other nutritional information are per serving. They're approximate and will depend on serving size and exact ingredients used.