Flatbreads#

Week 12. Turn the oven off.

Conduction, not hot air#

Metal moves heat into dough far faster than air does. So: hotter, thinner, faster, and barely any water lost.

The pocket, in three steps#

• both faces pass 100 °C and set into gas-tight skins
• the wet middle then boils
• steam expands 1600× in volume, faster than it can escape, and the skins part

Yeast contributes flavour. Steam does the lifting.

Three ways to lose it#

• uneven disc — steam vents through the soft half, half a pocket
• too thick — the middle never reaches 100 °C in time
• surface under 220 °C — it dries before it can flash, and you have a cracker

A roti has no leavening at all and still balloons in four seconds.

Naan: week 9, flattened#

Fat shortens the gluten. Yoghurt adds four things at once:

• water — it is about 85% water
• fat and milk solids
• lactose and milk protein, so it browns darker
• lactic acid to pH 4.5, which slackens the gluten and tenderises

Tandoor wall at 400–480 °C, wet side down, ninety seconds.

Masa has no protein network#

Maize simmered and steeped in 1% calcium hydroxide, around pH 12:

• pericarp dissolved, starch partly gelatinised → a dough that coheres
• niacin freed from niacytin → no pellagra

A corn tortilla is held together by gelatinised starch and calcium. A flour tortilla is gluten kept short with fat — which is why only one of them folds cold.

What held up each bread#

• 1–5 gluten, argued over with water
• 6 the same network, a different population
• 7 pentosan gel, defended by acid
• 8 a gelatinised skin, boiled on
• 9–10 gluten deliberately compromised, with fat and with butter
• 11 a chemical reaction instead of an organism
• 12 steam, and nothing else

Identify the mechanism and the formula reads itself.