Lavash

Large, thin, soft Armenian flatbreads, rested overnight and baked in seconds on a baking steel under the broiler — the home stand-in for the clay oven wall.

Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Flatbreads section and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.

Ingredients

• 180 g (about 1½ cups) bread flour, plus about 45 g (⅓ cup) for rolling
• 30 g (¼ cup) whole-wheat flour
• 11 g (4 teaspoons) cornstarch
• 1 g (¼ teaspoon) instant yeast
• 170 g (¾ cup less 2 teaspoons) milk, warmed to 75 °F (24 °C)
• 10 g (2 teaspoons) vegetable oil, plus a little for the dough balls
• 7 g (1 teaspoon) honey
• 5 g (1 heaping teaspoon) Diamond Crystal kosher salt (half by volume if table salt)

Directions

1. Mix. Whisk the flours, cornstarch and yeast. Stir in the milk, oil and honey until no dry flour remains. Cover 20 minutes.
2. Salt. Knead in the salt with wet hands, about 30 seconds. Cover 45 minutes. Knead briefly, then let rise until puffy but not doubled, 30–60 minutes.
3. Chill. Divide into 4 pieces (about 100 g each), round them tightly, oil lightly, space 2 inches apart in a covered container, and refrigerate 12–24 hours.
4. Heat. Put a baking steel or stone on a lower-middle rack and heat the oven to its maximum, 500–550 °F, for at least 30 minutes (a stone needs an hour). Switch to the broiler on high.
5. Roll each ball in plenty of flour to a rounded rectangle about 14 × 11 inches. Brush off the loose flour.
6. Bake. Lay it on a sheet of parchment on a peel, mist the top with water, and slide it onto the steel. Bake about 30 seconds, until it balloons (it will colour only a little). Flip, pull out the parchment, and bake 10 seconds more.
7. Steam. Stack the lavash under a towel on a rack and let the stack sit at least 15 minutes, which softens them.

Notes

Source Adapted from Andrew Janjigian, “Lavash (Armenian Flatbread),” Serious Eats. The cornstarch and milk are his choices, to keep the bread tender. King Arthur Baking’s “Lavash” (from The Big Book of Bread) is a leaner water dough with a preferment, broiled 30 seconds to a minute on a steel.

Tradition Armenian lavash is stretched over a cushion and slapped onto the wall of a clay tonir. UNESCO’s description gives only flour and water; Encyclopaedia Iranica says Iranian lavash is “more or less leavened.”

Crisp patches Spritz with water and keep covered 30 minutes to soften again.

The Flatbreads section of the Breads pages on the Food site covers the history, the science and the griddles.

The photo The photo shows lavash stacked for sale at the GUM market in Yerevan — oven-wall lavash, not this broiler version.