BBA S&S: Lavash

I haven't done a Bread Baker's Apprentice post in a loooong time. Soon it will be a year since I popped into this group that's doing (some have already finished) what I once considered darn near impossible for this singleton to accomplish -- bake every single bread in the Bread Baker's Apprentice. Here I am though, posting on "L." Truth be told, I'm actually through "M" and I'm stalled out (perhaps permanently) on pain a l'ancienne -- the bread that I've been scared to make since the first time I opened the book.

My dad (lover of all things bread) loves lavash. I think he's more keen on the softer lavash that you use as a base for rolling other yum yums, but I'm certain that he would like this variety, too. Because my dad is so fond of lavash I've been pretty excited to make this lovely flat bread. It's surprisingly easy to make:  there aren't any overnight ferments here, or multiple risings. It's a pretty simple mix, rest, and roll recipe. It's another stiff dough, and this means you're kneading by hand, but I found this dough much easier to work with than the bagel dough (which was almost impossibly stiff). Peter Reinhart gives all sorts of lovely variations for this dough:  pita, soft rolls (where you sprinkle the baked dough with a little bit of water to make it pliable), shards, and crackers. 

This is a bread that wears many hats, my friends. You can pile things on it or in it; seeds or no seeds; spices or just a little bit of salt. Yup, this bread can change with your mood, sort of like your outfits, only without the occasional fashion crisis because lavash is always in fashion. I can't imagine looking at lavash and thinking, oh, I can't use that, it's soooo 5 years ago. As you can probably see (because I only took one sort of picture of this oh so adaptable bread) I made crackers this time around. I used a combination of white sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, and poppy seeds, with some sea salt for good measure. I actually loved the whole black and white aesthetic that was going on with this combination, and I think I need to remember this for the future. I served this with spinach dip for the Super Bowl, and call me crazy, but I'm nearly positive that the whole black and white mod chic thing was lost in this type of surrounding. The only thing that matters is that it was tasty! Love the crackers, love the seeds, love lavash. Next time I'm not going to be worried about letting the dough bake to a darker color. The outside of my cracker sheet was crisp, the inside was a little less crisp. All in all, I preferred the crisp. The BBA S&S is a group and Nancy, Cathy, Kayte, Melissa, Sarah, Di, Leslie, Margaret and I are all baking through this book at about the same pace. So, check their blogs if you want to compare and contrast and see how they interpreted this bread. Or, check out Nancy's bread blog, The Corner Loaf, and you can read the lovely round ups that she posts.