Sunday, August 17, 2008

Turning Failure into Deliciousness

Ladies and gentlemen, I've had my first bread failure.

Seems like everyone's been making pita bread lately -- I saw it here, and here, and here, and here -- and a dozen other places, it seems!

So I dove in. Things progressed nicely -- I felt the dough was a little sticky, but nothing to make a fuss about. I let it rise. Rose beautifully. I rolled it out -- worked fine.

But when I covered it and let it proof, nothing happened. The recipe I was using said 20 minutes of proofing should produce a slight "puff" -- and I had no puff.

A few hours into the process at that point, I wasn't turning back. It rose, everything worked, except the proof...and I still have no idea why.

So I tossed it in the oven, and hoped for the best.

The end result was flatbread. Since I didn't get "puff" in my proofing stage, I didn't get "pockets" in my pita. But I did make a mighty tasty flatbread!

Admittedly, I'm still irritated at it -- mostly because I don't know what was wrong. I may try again, but not until my hatred for pita settles down.

Left with 8 slabs of flatbread, I had to figure out what to do with it. I fed several to DH -- in a variety of forms -- for lunch.

And with spaghetti on Friday, I finished them off as garlic breadsticks. A quick mix of oil and minced garlic (yes, from the jar -- I loves me some pre-minced garlic), brushed on the flatbread, then a sprinkling of italian blend shredded cheese, and some lovin' from the broiler....


And man -- they were JUST as good as Papa John's, or Domino's or whoever!

YUM YUM!

(DH tells me I need to screw up pita more often!)

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