There is a moment in every serious baker’s education when she understands, for the first time, what fat actually is in a dough. Not what it does in the gross functional sense — she knows it makes things tender, she has known that since she was old enough to rub butter into flour — but what it is physically, structurally, in the context of the gluten network that forms when flour meets water, and why its behavior changes so dramatically depending on how it is incorporated, at what temperature, in what quantity, and in what relationship to the liquid and the flour around it.
For most bakers, this understanding comes gradually and somewhat accidentally, assembled from the cumulative observation of many batches of many preparations over many years. For the Level 2 baker working within the specific constraints of this kitchen, it comes more quickly and more urgently, because the Level 2 fat-based preparations demand that the baker understand fat with a precision that the ordinary baking year, with its chemical leavening to compensate for errors and its biological leavening to condition and soften the crumb, does not require. In the Level 2 fat-based kitchen, fat is not one tool among many. It is the primary tool, and its management is the difference between excellent preparation and poor one.
This chapter is built around four categories of fat-based and layered preparation that represent the full range of what fat can accomplish as the primary structural and textural element in a Level 2 unleavened dough. Each category makes different demands on the baker’s understanding of fat and produces a qualitatively different result, and taken together they constitute what I consider the most technically sophisticated section of the Level 2 recipe chapters. Not the most difficult — some of the egg-based preparations of Chapter 8 are more technically demanding in their moment-to-moment execution — but the most technically complete in the sense of requiring the broadest and most integrated understanding of the baker’s primary materials.
We will work through each category in order of increasing complexity: the shortbread-style crackers, which are the simplest expression of cold fat worked into flour; the laminated preparations, which are the most sophisticated expression of the same fundamental technique taken to its layered conclusion; the olive-oil flatbreads, which operate by a completely different mechanism from the cold-fat preparations and require a different understanding entirely; and the twice-baked preparations, which add the dimension of sequential heat management to what would otherwise be a straightforward enriched dough. Each section begins with the principles and ends with the recipes, because in the Level 2 fat-based kitchen, understanding the principles is not separate from executing the recipes but is the precondition for executing them well.
On Fat Temperature and Its Consequences
Before any of the recipes in this chapter can be made well, the baker must understand the most fundamental variable in all fat-based preparation: temperature. Fat temperature at the time of incorporation determines more about the character of the finished product than any other single factor in the formula, and the three primary temperature states — cold solid, warm soft, and hot liquid — produce results so different from one another that they are practically different ingredients despite being the same substance.
Cold solid fat, incorporated into flour by cutting or rubbing before the addition of any liquid, does not distribute evenly through the flour. It remains in discrete pieces of varying sizes — some as large as peas, some as small as sand grains, some at every size between — and these pieces coat the flour particles around them with a thin film of fat while leaving other flour particles uncoated. The result of this uneven distribution is, after baking, a product that is simultaneously short and layered: short in the coated regions where fat has inhibited gluten development and the coated flour particles will separate from each other easily in the mouth, and layered in the regions where distinct pieces of fat have melted during baking, leaving behind thin air pockets between planes of flour-and-water structure. Cold fat incorporated into flour is the foundation of every flaky pastry in the history of baking, and understanding why it produces flakiness — the discrete fat pieces melt and leave behind thin separations, which steam then pushes apart to create distinct layers — is the key to managing the technique deliberately rather than accidentally.
Warm soft fat, at roughly room temperature and spreadable but not runny, distributes more evenly when worked into flour than cold fat does, coating the flour particles more uniformly and leaving fewer discrete pieces. The result after baking is a product that is short — tender and crumbling in the mouth — without the layering that cold fat produces. The shortbread crackers and certain of the twice-baked preparations in this chapter use fat in this state, because uniform shortness rather than layered flakiness is the textural goal.
Hot liquid fat, incorporated into flour either before or simultaneously with the liquid component of the dough, distributes most evenly of all, coating flour particles uniformly and inhibiting gluten development throughout the dough rather than in patches. It also, as I have described at length in earlier chapters, partially gelatinizes the starch in the flour on contact, producing a dough of distinctive character: pliable, slightly glossy, extensible without being elastic, and remarkably forgiving on the bench. Hot liquid fat is the fat of the olive-oil flatbread tradition and of several of the twice-baked preparations in this chapter, and the baker who has worked with cold fat all her life will find the behavior of hot-fat doughs initially surprising and eventually, I think, somewhat addictive in their workability.
These three fat temperature states are not interchangeable within a given recipe. Using cold fat where warm is specified produces flakiness where smoothness is intended; using warm fat where cold is specified loses the layering that defines the preparation. The recipes that follow specify fat temperature with precision, and the baker should treat these specifications as requirements rather than guidelines.
Recipe 24 — Simple Unleavened Shortbread-Style Crackers
Level: 2 and 3
A note on this recipe: the shortbread-style cracker is, in its fundamental structure, the simplest possible expression of what fat does in flour: fat is worked into flour until the flour particles are uniformly coated, a small quantity of liquid is added to bind the mixture into a rollable dough, and the dough is rolled thin and baked until the fat melts and the starches set around it, producing a product whose defining characteristic is its uniform, even tenderness from edge to center. There are no layers. There is no flakiness. There is only the clean, even shortness that comes from flour whose gluten development has been completely and uniformly inhibited by the fat surrounding every particle.
The cracker I am describing is not sweet in the way that the Scottish shortbread from which the name derives is sweet. It is a savory or neutrally flavored preparation that serves the same purpose at the Level 2 festival table that the soda cracker of Recipe 4 serves at the Level 1 table: a stable, crisp base for soft cheese, preserved preparations, and herb-oil accompaniments, and a textural contrast to the softer flatbreads that form the backbone of daily festival eating. It is also, of the preparations in this chapter, the one that most directly continues the historical Bravian tradition of fat-based unleavened cracker production that I described in the historical section of Chapter 3, and several of the regional variations below are drawn directly from historical household recipe books of the pre-chemical-leavening era.
Makes approximately 50 crackers
Ingredients:
- 2 cups soft wheat flour — soft wheat rather than hard, because the goal here is uniform inhibition of gluten development throughout, and soft wheat’s lower protein content produces less gluten to begin with, which means the fat has less work to do to produce the desired shortness; using hard wheat flour in a shortbread-style cracker produces a product that is less tender and more resistant to the clean snap that defines a well-made cracker of this type
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- ½ cup butter, at cool room temperature — not cold, not warm, but cool room temperature: soft enough to be pressed with a fingertip and leave a clear indentation, firm enough to retain its shape when handled without immediately smearing across the surface. This temperature is critical and worth checking before beginning; butter that is too cold will not distribute evenly enough to produce the uniform shortness required, and butter that is too warm will produce a greasy, spreading dough that bakes to an oily and poorly textured result
- 3 to 4 tablespoons cold water — the minimum quantity necessary to bring the dough together; this dough should be as lean in liquid as possible, because excess water develops gluten and undermines the shortness the fat is trying to produce
Method:
Combine the soft wheat flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Add the cool room-temperature butter in one piece and work it into the flour using your fingertips in a firm, pressing motion rather than the light rubbing used for cold fat incorporation: press and smear the butter through the flour, working across the bowl, until the mixture is completely uniform and no visible pieces of butter remain. The mixture should look and feel like very fine, slightly damp sand — not crumbly, not sticky, but cohesive when pressed between the fingers. This even distribution of fat is the defining technical requirement of this preparation and distinguishes it from the flaky preparations later in the chapter, where the goal is deliberately uneven fat distribution.
Test the mixture by pressing a small handful firmly together: if it coheres into a mass that holds its shape when the pressure is released, the fat distribution is sufficient and no additional working is needed. If it crumbles apart immediately, press and smear further.
Add three tablespoons of cold water and stir with a broad knife or a flat spatula until the dough just comes together. It will be considerably stiffer than any of the flatbread doughs in previous chapters and will feel almost too dry to work with. If it does not cohere, add the fourth tablespoon of water carefully. Do not add more than four tablespoons: a dough that requires more liquid than this to cohere has either been insufficiently worked in the fat-incorporation stage — the fat has not fully coated the flour particles and the flour is therefore absorbing liquid rapidly — or has been measured with too much flour. Identify the source of the problem rather than adding more water, which will begin to develop gluten and change the character of the finished cracker.
Form the dough into a flat disc, wrap in cloth, and rest at cool room temperature for twenty minutes. The rest period is brief relative to other preparations in this book because this dough requires minimal gluten relaxation — there is very little gluten to relax — but it does need time for the moisture to distribute evenly through the flour-fat matrix and for the butter to firm slightly after the warmth of the working.
Preheat the oven to moderately hot, with a baking stone or heavy sheet inside.
Divide the rested dough into three portions. Working with one portion at a time and keeping the remainder wrapped, roll on a very lightly floured bench to the thinnest achievable even sheet. The shortbread cracker dough rolls differently from the flatbread doughs of earlier chapters: it is short and cohesive rather than elastic, which means it does not spring back when rolled but also does not have the extensibility of a gluten-developed dough. It will roll to an even sheet of good thinness — not quite the near-translucency of the best Level 3 matzah preparations, but thin enough that the color of the bench surface is visible through the dough when held at an angle to the light — and it will reach this thinness with less effort and less resistance than a gluten-developed dough of comparable hydration.
Cut into rectangles or rounds of the desired size. Transfer to the preheated baking surface — the shortbread cracker dough is less fragile than the thin wafer of Recipe 13 and can be lifted by hand with some care, though a broad spatula is still useful for the thinner pieces.
Prick each cracker once or twice with a fork — fewer perforations than the hard tack of Recipe 5, because this dough does not generate the vigorous steam of a higher-hydration preparation and does not need extensive docking to control blistering. Scatter the surface treatment of your choice from the options below, or leave plain.
Bake for ten to fourteen minutes, watching from the nine-minute mark, until the crackers are a pale, even golden color across their entire surface. Shortbread-style crackers brown more slowly and more uniformly than the spotty browning of the high-heat Level 3 flatbreads, because the fat surrounding each flour particle mediates the rate of browning: rather than the rapid, direct contact browning of a lean dough on a very hot surface, the fat promotes a slower, more even development of color. The correctly finished cracker is pale golden throughout with slightly deeper color at the edges, and is completely rigid and dry when lifted from the baking surface. It will crisp further as it cools.
Transfer to a rack and cool completely. The finished crackers should snap cleanly when broken and have a texture that dissolves evenly in the mouth without any resistant or chewy quality. A chewiness in the finished cracker indicates either too much water in the dough — excess gluten development — or insufficient fat incorporation, and either error should be noted for correction in the next batch.
Store in a dry, loosely covered container. These keep well for four to five days and maintain their crispness reliably in a dry environment.
Regional surface treatments:
Hill country — coarse salt and dried thyme: Scatter a pinch of coarse salt and a small quantity of crumbled dried thyme over the surface of each cracker before baking, pressing very gently with the palm to encourage adhesion. The thyme will toast against the hot surface during baking and develop a caramelized, intensely fragrant quality that is characteristic of hill country unleavened preparations generally.
Port town — sesame and fine black pepper: Scatter sesame seeds and a pinch of finely ground black pepper over the surface before baking. The sesame toasts to a deep golden color against the pale surface of the cracker and contributes a nutty richness that pairs well with the soft fresh cheeses and preserved fish preparations of the coastal festival table.
Interior Amphoe — caraway and onion: Work a teaspoon of caraway seed and a tablespoon of very finely dried and ground onion flake into the flour mixture before the fat is incorporated, distributing them evenly through the flour before the fat is added. These interior flavors penetrate the cracker more completely than surface treatments do, because they are incorporated before the fat and are therefore present throughout the crumb rather than only on the surface.
Delta settlement — coriander and sesame: Scatter lightly crushed coriander seed and a small quantity of sesame over the surface before baking. This combination reflects the developing flavoring tradition of the eastern communities described in Chapter 5 and produces a cracker with a warm, slightly citrus-edged character that is becoming increasingly familiar at festival tables throughout the Delta region.
Level 3 note: This preparation is appropriate at Level 3 without modification, because the fat incorporation technique — pressing and smearing at room temperature — does not constitute mechanical leavening. The fat is being distributed for the purpose of gluten inhibition and shortness, not for the purpose of air incorporation, and the technique used does not introduce meaningful quantities of air into the mixture. This is one of the clearest cases in the Level 2 recipe chapters where Level 3 applicability is unambiguous, and the cracker produced at Level 3 using this recipe is identical in character to the Level 2 version.
Recipe 25 — Unleavened Laminated Dough: The Basic Preparation
Level: 2
A note on this recipe: laminated dough is the most technically sophisticated preparation in this chapter and the one that most clearly demonstrates what the Level 2 kitchen can achieve through fat and technique alone, without any biological or chemical leavening of any kind. The lamination technique — the folding of cold fat into a developed dough in a series of repeated folds that create thin, alternating layers of fat and dough — produces a preparation that separates in the oven into distinct, tender layers not because any gas has been produced to push them apart, but because the thin films of fat between the dough layers prevent adhesion, and the steam generated by the water content of both the fat and the dough vaporizes rapidly against the intense oven heat and forces those non-adhering layers apart. The result, in the hands of a baker who has managed the fat temperature and the folding correctly, is a preparation with a layered, flaky, almost architectural quality that is genuinely remarkable for a product that contains no leavening of any kind.
I described in Chapter 3 the theological question around lamination at the boundary of Level 2 and Level 3, and I noted the majority position — that lamination is available at Level 2 because its mechanism is steam rather than trapped air — without prejudice to the minority view. This recipe is written for the Level 2 baker who operates under the majority position. The baker who holds the minority position on lamination should proceed to Recipe 26, the olive-oil flatbread, which achieves its character by a completely different mechanism and presents no lamination-related concerns at any level.
The laminated preparation I describe below is not the full-laminated puff pastry of the professional kitchen, which requires many more folds and a much more precisely managed fat-to-dough ratio than is practical in a home kitchen, particularly during the festival season when the baker has many other preparations to attend to. It is a simplified lamination — three to four folds rather than the six or more of a professional preparation — that produces a product with genuine layers and genuine flakiness without the extended time commitment or the technical precision that a full lamination requires. It is the lamination of the Bravian home kitchen rather than the professional pastry kitchen, and it is very good.
Produces dough sufficient for 12 to 16 individual preparations, depending on size
For the base dough:
Ingredients:
- 2 cups hard wheat flour — hard wheat is essential for laminated preparations because the gluten network must be sufficiently developed to hold the thin layers of dough together during folding and rolling without tearing; soft wheat flour lacks the structural capacity for this and will tear during the folding process
- ½ cup soft wheat flour — a proportion of soft wheat is included to moderate the toughness that a pure hard wheat laminated dough can develop, because gluten that is too strong will resist the rolling between folds and require extended rest periods to relax before each fold
- ¾ teaspoon fine salt
- 2 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces — this small quantity of fat in the base dough is not lamination fat; it is incorporated into the flour before the water is added by the rubbing method and serves to produce a base dough of moderate tenderness that will provide a pleasant texture in the thicker, less-layered portions of the finished preparation
- ½ cup cold water, approximately — begin with slightly less and add carefully
Method for the base dough:
Combine the hard wheat flour, soft wheat flour, and salt in a mixing bowl. Work in the two tablespoons of cold butter by the rubbing method until the mixture resembles coarse sand with no visible butter pieces. Add the cold water and bring the dough together into a firm, smooth ball, adding water carefully until the dough is properly hydrated — firm, not sticky, not dry. Knead on a lightly floured bench for five to six minutes until the gluten is well developed and the dough is smooth and somewhat elastic. This is more kneading than most of the doughs in this book require, because the gluten must be developed to a reasonable degree before lamination begins: underdeveloped gluten tears during folding, while well-developed gluten stretches.
Form into a flat rectangle — not a ball — approximately six inches by four inches, wrap in cloth, and rest in a cool place or the cold room for thirty minutes. The resting relaxes the gluten that the kneading developed and makes the first roll easier; it also ensures that the base dough and the lamination fat are at similar temperatures when they meet, which is essential for successful lamination.
For the lamination fat:
Ingredients:
- ¾ cup cold butter — this is the lamination fat, and its temperature management is the most critical technical variable in the entire preparation. The butter must be cold enough to remain solid and discrete from the dough during rolling — if it melts into the dough, the layers collapse and the preparation becomes simply a fat-enriched dough without layering — but pliable enough to roll and fold without shattering into sharp, crumbling pieces that tear through the thin dough layers. The ideal temperature is what I would describe as plastic: the butter should bend rather than snap when flexed, and should hold an indentation when pressed with a finger without immediately spreading or smearing. In the cool-room conditions of a Bravian spring kitchen, this temperature is usually achieved by allowing the butter to sit at room temperature for fifteen to twenty minutes after coming from the cold room. In a warmer kitchen, the butter may need to be kept colder and worked more quickly.
Method for the lamination fat:
Place the cold butter between two pieces of clean cloth and beat it with a rolling pin into a flat rectangle approximately five inches by four inches and of even thickness throughout. This beating accomplishes two things: it shapes the butter into the flat slab required for the first incorporation, and it develops the plasticity of the butter — the beating aligns the fat crystals in a way that makes the butter more pliable and more cooperative during rolling without warming it to the point of softening. The shaped butter slab should be cold and plastic when you are ready to incorporate it into the base dough. If it has warmed and softened during the shaping process, return it to the cold room for ten minutes before proceeding.
Lamination method:
Remove the rested base dough from its cloth and roll on a lightly floured bench into a rectangle that is twice the size of the butter slab — approximately ten inches by eight inches. Place the butter slab in the center of the dough rectangle, oriented with its longer dimension parallel to the longer dimension of the dough. Fold the dough over the butter from both sides, as if folding a letter: bring one short end of the dough over the butter to the center, then bring the other short end over it, completely enclosing the butter within the dough. Press the edges firmly to seal the butter inside.
Now roll the enclosed package gently in the direction of the fold — pushing the rolling pin away from you along the length of the package, with moderate pressure — until the package is approximately three times its current length and approximately a quarter of an inch thick. Roll deliberately and without excessive force: too much pressure at this stage can push the butter through the thin dough layers, which is the primary failure mode of lamination and produces a greasy, uneven product. If butter begins to show through the surface of the dough at any point during rolling, stop immediately and place the package in the cold room for fifteen minutes before continuing; the butter has warmed too much and needs to firm before it can be worked further.
Fold the rolled rectangle into thirds — again, as a letter: the bottom third up, the top third down over it. This is the first fold, and it has produced three layers of dough with two layers of fat between them. Wrap the folded package and rest in the cold room for twenty minutes.
Remove from the cold room, orient the package so that the fold opening faces to the right, and roll again in the same direction to three times the length. Fold in thirds again. Rest in the cold room for twenty minutes. This is the second fold and has produced nine layers of dough with eight layers of fat.
Repeat the roll-and-fold sequence one more time — a third fold — producing twenty-seven layers of dough with twenty-six layers of fat. Rest in the cold room for twenty minutes after the third fold before the dough is ready for its final roll and shaping.
After the third rest, remove from the cold room and roll to the thickness appropriate for the intended preparation. For preparations intended to be eaten as an accompaniment to soups and stews — cut into rectangles or rounds and baked plain — roll to approximately an eighth of an inch, which will produce a preparation with visible, distinct layers and a satisfying flaky snap when broken. For preparations intended to be filled or topped, roll to a quarter of an inch to provide more structural integrity.
Cut the rolled dough into the desired shapes. Place on a preheated heavy baking sheet or stone. Do not use parchment for laminated preparations, because parchment creates a slightly humid environment at the base of the dough that prevents the bottom layers from crisping properly; the direct contact of dough on hot metal or stone is important for the development of bottom-layer crispness.
Bake in a very hot oven — as hot as the oven will achieve — for twelve to sixteen minutes, until the preparations are deeply golden across their entire surface and the layers are visibly separated at the edges. The layers should be distinct and well-separated when a preparation is broken in half: this is the clearest indicator of successful lamination. If the layers are fused rather than distinct, the butter warmed too much during rolling and merged with the dough rather than remaining separate from it.
Uses for the laminated preparation: The plain baked laminated preparation is excellent as an accompaniment to the soups, stews, and spreads of Part Five, where its flaky, buttery character provides a richness and a textural contrast that the plainer Level 3 flatbreads cannot match. It is also a good base for the open-faced preparations described at the close of Chapter 6, where the laminated crispness carries soft toppings more elegantly than a plain flatbread does. For filled preparations — a laminated pastry shell around a festival-appropriate filling — follow the hand pie method of Chapter 6, using the laminated dough in place of the standard pastry shell dough and reducing the oven temperature very slightly to allow the interior to heat through before the laminated exterior has fully set.
On working in warm weather: The festival season falls in spring, and the kitchen temperature in most Bravian regions at this time of year is compatible with laminated preparations. The baker who attempts laminated preparations in the warmer months, or who works in a kitchen that is unusually warm for the season, will find that the resting periods between folds must be extended and the cold room must be used more aggressively to keep the butter plastic rather than soft. In temperatures above what I would describe as a warm spring day, laminated preparations become very difficult to manage without a purpose-built cold space, and the baker may be better served by one of the other preparations in this chapter.
Recipe 26 — Olive-Oil Unleavened Flatbreads of the Southern Coastal Tradition
Level: 2 and 3
A note on this recipe: the olive-oil flatbread of the southern coastal regions and the port towns is, of all the preparations in this chapter, the one that operates most differently from the cold-fat preparations of Recipes 24 and 25. Where those preparations depend on the discrete presence of solid fat pieces in or between layers of gluten network for their characteristic textural qualities, this preparation depends on the even distribution of liquid fat through a fully hydrated dough — a distribution so complete and so uniform that the olive oil and the water and the flour are essentially a single continuous phase rather than distinct components, and the character of the finished preparation comes not from the layering or shortening of gluten but from the lubrication of gluten strands by the oil that surrounds them throughout the dough.
This is an old preparation. It predates the cold-fat laminated traditions of the hill country and the interior Amphoe communities and probably predates the butter-based shortbread cracker tradition as well, because olive oil is the oldest recorded fat in the Bravian culinary tradition and its use in unleavened bread is documented in the earliest Bravian household records that have survived. The recipe I present here is developed from those historical preparations, modernized only in the specificity of its measurements and technique; the fundamental formula — olive oil, flour, water, salt — has not changed in any meaningful way from what was being made in the port-town kitchens of Bravia’s earliest years.
This preparation is appropriate at both Level 2 and Level 3 without modification, because liquid fat incorporated by simple mixing — as opposed to the creaming or whipping of fat with air — does not constitute mechanical leavening at either level. It is the most straightforwardly Level 3-compatible of the preparations in this chapter, and it is the preparation I would recommend to the baker who is working at the boundary between Level 2 and Level 3 and wants a fat-enriched preparation that presents no concerns at the strictest standard.
Makes 10 flatbreads
Ingredients:
- 2 cups hard wheat flour
- ½ cup soft wheat flour
- ¾ teaspoon fine salt
- 5 tablespoons good olive oil — the quality of the olive oil matters more in this preparation than in any other recipe in this book, because it is a primary flavor rather than a background contributor; a fruity, well-flavored oil from a good pressing will produce a flatbread of considerable depth and character, while a thin, flavorless oil will produce a preparation that is texturally correct but flavorless. Use the best olive oil available to you, and if you can obtain a cold-pressed oil from the port-town markets rather than the heat-processed oil of wider commercial distribution, do so.
- ½ cup water, heated until steaming — hot water rather than cold, for the reasons of starch gelatinization and dough extensibility described at length in earlier chapters; the combination of hot water and olive oil in this preparation produces a dough of remarkable pliability that is among the easiest to roll in this entire book
Method:
Combine the flours and salt in a mixing bowl. Combine the olive oil and hot water in a separate small bowl and stir briefly — they will not fully combine, because oil and water do not emulsify without an emulsifying agent, but brief stirring will distribute the oil in droplets through the water sufficiently for even incorporation into the flour.
Pour the hot oil-and-water mixture into the flour and salt in a steady stream, stirring as you pour. The dough will come together quickly and with notable ease — more quickly and with less effort than water-only or butter-enriched doughs of comparable formulation, because the olive oil coats the flour proteins immediately and comprehensively, which both inhibits gluten development and lubricates the forming dough to produce a smooth, workable consistency within seconds of the liquid meeting the flour.
Turn onto a lightly floured bench while still warm and knead gently for two to three minutes. The dough will be smooth, slightly glossy from the oil, and noticeably supple: it will move and stretch under the hands in a way that is more reminiscent of clay than of conventional bread dough, yielding under pressure without resistance and returning slowly to its original state rather than snapping back. This distinctive handling character is one of the pleasures of working with an oil-enriched dough and one of the reasons that experienced bakers in the olive-oil tradition tend to find the transition to other dough types slightly frustrating after working with this preparation.
Cover and rest for twenty-five minutes. The olive-oil dough benefits from a somewhat longer rest than the water-only preparations of Chapter 11, because the oil needs time to distribute fully and evenly through the dough and the gelatinized starch needs time to set into the extensible network that makes this dough so workable.
Divide into ten portions. Roll each on a lightly floured bench — very little flour is needed, because the oil makes the dough naturally non-sticky against a clean surface — to a round of approximately nine inches in diameter. The oil-enriched dough rolls to this size with almost no resistance: it is the most extensible of all the doughs in this chapter and will reach the correct thinness with a fraction of the effort required by the water-only Level 3 preparations of Chapter 11.
Bake on a preheated griddle or stone at high heat for sixty to seventy-five seconds per side. The olive oil promotes faster surface browning than the water-only matzah preparations of Chapter 11, and the baker should watch the color from the forty-five second mark: the correct final color is a warm, deep golden brown with slightly more even distribution of color than the water-only preparations because the oil conducts heat more evenly across the surface. The preparation should be rigid when fully baked but marginally less brittle than a water-only preparation, retaining a slight degree of pliability from the oil content that makes it more forgiving of the cooling process and more useful as a wrap if it is consumed while still warm.
Surface treatments for the olive-oil flatbread: The oil-enriched surface of this preparation is notably better suited to surface treatments than the water-only preparations of Chapter 11, because the oil provides a natural adhesive for seeds, herbs, and salt crystals without the need for an additional oil wash. All of the surface treatments described in the surface treatment framework of Chapter 11 are appropriate here and work particularly well, because the oil already present in the dough produces a surface that toasts and develops flavor in the oven in a way that a lean dough does not.
The most characteristic surface treatment for this preparation in the Western Reaches port-town tradition is a scatter of coarse sea salt and cracked black pepper applied immediately after the flatbread comes off the griddle while the surface is still hot and the oil is still active: the salt dissolves slightly against the hot oiled surface and the pepper releases its aromatic oils into the warm fat, producing an effect that is impossible to achieve with the same ingredients applied before baking. This is the preparation that my grandfather apparently ate every morning of the feast season with strong tea and nothing else, and while I am not in a position to vouch for his tea, I will vouch for the bread.
On the use of other oils: The olive-oil specification in this recipe is a preference rather than an absolute requirement, and the baker whose pantry or regional tradition does not center on olive oil can substitute another liquid fat with good results. Rendered lamb fat that has been melted to a liquid and cooled slightly will produce a richer, more savory flatbread with a depth of fat flavor that pairs extremely well with the meat-based preparations of Part Five. Rendered beef tallow produces a more neutral fat character. Good quality nut oils — walnut oil is available in some of the interior markets, and almond oil appears in certain port-town preparations — produce interesting and complex results but are too expensive for everyday festival production and are better reserved for preparations where the oil’s character can be fully appreciated. Whatever oil or liquid fat is used, the technique is identical and the results will reflect the character of the fat chosen.
Recipe 27 — Hard Twice-Baked Biscotti-Style Slices
Level: 2 and 3
A note on this recipe: the twice-baked preparation is one of the oldest techniques in the Bravian unleavened baking tradition, predating not only chemical leavening but, in some of the oldest documented forms of the preparation, written recipe records of any kind. The principle is simple and has been known since the earliest days of baking: a dough that is baked once and then sliced and baked again at lower temperature will dry out more completely than any single baking can achieve, producing a preparation of almost indefinite keeping quality whose texture is hard, dry, and resistant to moisture — simultaneously the most austere and the most practical result achievable from flour, fat, and heat.
The preparation I describe here is adapted from the hill country household tradition of hard twice-baked slices that were made in large quantities in the days before the feast season, stored in the pantry, and eaten throughout the seven days alongside softer fresh preparations. They are not elegant food and they do not pretend to be: they are functional, reliable, and considerably more pleasant to eat than that description makes them sound, because the twice-baking process develops the grain’s natural flavors through repeated exposure to dry heat in a way that a single baking does not, and the fat content of the dough provides a background richness that keeps the finished product from being merely austere.
This preparation is appropriate at both Level 2 and Level 3. The Level 2 version includes an egg as a binder and enricher; the Level 3 version omits the egg or adds it without beating, which produces a marginally firmer and less rich but equally good preparation appropriate for the strictest standard.
Makes approximately 30 slices
Ingredients:
- 2 cups hard wheat flour — hard wheat is essential because the structure of the twice-baked preparation must survive not only the first baking but the slicing and the second baking, and soft wheat flour does not have the structural capacity to hold a clean slice without crumbling
- ½ cup spelt flour — included for flavor complexity; the nutty character of spelt develops particularly well in the twice-baked process where the extended heat exposure has more time to work on the grain’s natural flavor compounds than a single baking would allow
- ¾ teaspoon fine salt
- 1 teaspoon honey — a small quantity, sufficient to promote surface browning during the second baking and to provide a mild background sweetness that is perceptible without making the preparation sweet in any pronounced sense
- 5 tablespoons olive oil or melted butter — olive oil produces a preparation more appropriate for savory pairings; butter produces a slightly richer and more neutral preparation appropriate for either savory or sweet accompaniment
- 1 egg, lightly beaten — Level 2; omit entirely for a strict Level 3 preparation, or add unbeaten for a Level 3 preparation with the egg’s structural contribution preserved
- 4 to 6 tablespoons warm water, as needed
Additions for regional flavor variations: Choose one of the following, or leave plain:
- Hill country: 1 teaspoon whole caraway seed and 1 teaspoon dried thyme, incorporated into the dry flour mixture before the fat is added
- Port town: 2 tablespoons sesame seed, toasted, and ½ teaspoon coarse black pepper
- Interior Amphoe: 1 tablespoon dried onion flake, crumbled finely, and 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
- Sweet festival variation: 2 tablespoons honey replacing the single teaspoon in the base formula, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom, and 3 tablespoons of very finely minced dried fruit incorporated into the flour before the fat is added
Method:
Preheat the oven to moderate. Grease a loaf pan or a rectangular baking form of approximately eight by four inches.
Combine the hard wheat flour, spelt flour, salt, and any chosen additions in a mixing bowl and stir to distribute. Combine the honey, olive oil or melted butter, and the lightly beaten egg in a small bowl and stir until uniform. Add this fat-egg mixture to the flour and work in by hand until the flour is evenly coated. Add warm water two tablespoons at a time until the dough coheres into a firm, slightly stiff mass that holds its shape when pressed. It should not be soft or slack: this dough must be stiff enough to hold the shape of the loaf form through the first baking and to slice cleanly after cooling.
Transfer the dough to the prepared loaf pan and press it firmly and evenly into the form, ensuring no air pockets and a flat, level surface. The dough will fill the pan to approximately half its depth.
First baking: Bake in the moderate oven for twenty-five to thirty minutes, until the preparation is set throughout — a skewer inserted in the center should come out clean and dry — and the surface is a pale, uniform golden color. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the pan before proceeding. This is not negotiable: a hot or even warm preparation will crumble when sliced, and the complete cooling of the first-baked loaf is the technical precondition for the clean slicing that makes the twice-baked preparation possible. Allow at least one hour of cooling at room temperature, or up to overnight.
When the first-baked preparation is completely cool, remove from the pan and place on a cutting board. Using a sharp, thin-bladed knife, cut the loaf into slices of approximately three-eighths of an inch thickness — thin enough to dry completely in the second baking without requiring an excessive baking time, thick enough to maintain their structural integrity during the second baking and during subsequent handling. Cut with a firm, decisive stroke rather than a sawing motion: sawing will crumble the edges of a preparation of this dryness and produce uneven slices. If the slices crumble despite decisive cutting, the first baking was insufficient and the interior of the loaf was not fully set; the remedy is to return the unsliced loaf to the oven for an additional ten minutes before attempting to slice again.
Second baking: Reduce the oven to low. Arrange the slices in a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet, with the cut surfaces facing up. Bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes, then turn each slice over and bake for an additional twenty to twenty-five minutes. The slices are done when they are completely dry throughout — pressing the center of a slice should reveal no softness or give — and have developed a deeper golden color than the first-baked preparation, with slightly darker color at the edges and a surface that is visibly drier and more matte in finish than the sliced surface was before the second baking.
Transfer to a rack and cool completely. The finished twice-baked slices should be thoroughly and uniformly hard and dry, with a texture that requires real effort to bite through and that softens and yields pleasantly once initial contact has been made. They are excellent dry, eaten as a cracker accompaniment to the soups, stews, and spreads of Part Five, and they are equally excellent briefly moistened in warm broth or dipped in olive oil, which softens them slightly and amplifies the grain and fat flavors that the twice-baking has developed.
Store in a dry, loosely covered container or a cloth-lined provision box. Properly dried and stored, these keep for two to three weeks without significant deterioration, making them by far the best-keeping sweet or savory preparation in this book and the most useful for households that wish to prepare for the full seven days of the feast in advance.
A note on the sweet festival variation: The sweet variation, made with additional honey and warm spices, produces a preparation that occupies a genuinely different position at the festival table from the savory versions: it is a sweet, spiced cracker of considerable depth that is excellent alongside the honey cake of Recipe 11 and the fruit-filled pastry rounds of Recipe 12, and that holds up to a spread of soft fresh cheese and preserved fruit in a way that nothing else in this chapter quite matches. I make this variation in large quantities in the days before the feast season and store it throughout the seven days as a reliable sweet accompaniment that requires no baking during the feast week itself — a practical advantage that the baker who is managing a full festival kitchen will appreciate more than I can adequately convey in the space available here.
The Fat-Based Kitchen in Perspective
The four preparations in this chapter span a range of technique and character that I think represents the full scope of what fat can accomplish as the primary element of an unleavened Level 2 preparation. They move from the uniform shortness of the cold-butter cracker through the dramatic layering of the laminated preparation, from the silky extensibility of the olive-oil flatbread to the austere reliability of the twice-baked slice, and each of them achieves its character through a different relationship between fat and flour and heat.
What they share is the demand for understanding. The baker who attempts the laminated preparation without understanding why the fat must remain cold will produce a greasy, unstructured mess rather than distinct layers. The baker who attempts the olive-oil flatbread with butter at room temperature rather than liquid oil will produce a dough whose handling characteristics are entirely different from what the recipe intends. The baker who removes the twice-baked slices from the oven before the second baking has completed will produce a preparation that softens within a day and fails at its primary purpose of keeping well.
In each case, the failure is not of the recipe but of the understanding, and the remedy is the same: to know why each specification exists before the hands begin the work, and to bring that knowledge to the bench alongside the flour and the fat and the heat. This is the demand the Level 2 kitchen makes consistently, and it is a demand that the baker who meets it will find has made her not only a better Level 2 baker but a better baker in every context and every season.
My mother would have said something simpler. She would have said: know your fat. It was, in the end, the same advice.
Chapter 10: Egg-White and Beaten Preparations begins on the following page.
