Turkish Pide Dough Bread Recipes

Steps:

• Combine the flour and sugar with ½ teaspoon salt in a bowl. Dissolve the yeast in 175 ml (¾ cup/6 oz.) water. Make a well in the flour and mix in the yeast. Knead for 5 minutes into a dough, cover with a damp dish towel and rest for 30 minutes. Divide the dough into 4 equal parts, roll into balls and rest, covered, for a further 15 minutes.
• Crumble the cheese into a bowl. Finely chop the spring onions (scallions), parsley, and dill and add to the bowl with all of the other filling ingredients. Season with ¼ teaspoon black pepper and ½ teaspoon salt and gently combine by hand. Divide the filling into 4 equal parts.
• Preheat oven to 475°F. Flour your hands and flatten the dough. Stretch each disc into a 4 by 10-inch rectangle. Spread the filling equally among the rectangles. Fold ¾ inch of dough in all around and join the corners of the short sides together.
• Put the flatbreads on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 9-10 minutes, making sure they are evenly baked. Remove from the oven, brush with melted butter, cut into 1½-inch strips and serve.

Steps:

• Dissolve the yeast and sugar in 125 ml of the warm water and set aside in a warm place for about 10 minutes until frothy. Use your fingers to work 90g of the flour into the yeast to make a sloppy paste. Sprinkle lightly with a little more flour, then cover with a tea towel and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes to form a 'sponge'.
• Put the remaining flour and the salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and add the sponge, oil and remaining water. Use your fingers to work it to a soft, sloppy dough. Don't panic: it is meant to be very sticky!
• Transfer to an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook and knead on a low speed for 10-15 minutes until very smooth and springy. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, then cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rest at room temperature for 1 hour or until doubled in size. (From this point you can proceed to bake the pide bread or filled pide boats. You can also refrigerate the dough until you are ready to use it. It will keep for around 24 hours, but take it out of the refrigerator a good 3 hours before you want to use it, to give it time to return to room temperature slowly.).
• When ready to bake the bread, preheat the oven to its highest setting with two pizza stones or oiled baking sheets in it. Divide the dough in two, then form into rounds and leave, covered, to rest for 30 minutes. Mix the egg and milk to make an egg wash. Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Use the heels of your hands to press and flatten each piece of dough out to a 20 cm oval.
• Brush the surface liberally with the egg wash. Dip your fingertips into the egg wash and mark rows of deep indentations across and down the length of the dough, leaving a narrow border. Now comes the tricky bit. Lightly flour the hot pizza stones or trays. Lift on the pides, stretching them gently and evenly. Sprinkle with nigella or sesame seeds and bake for 8-10 minutes until crisp and golden brown.

Steps:

• Mixing and Bulk Fermentation
• Mix the dough ingredients together in a bowl with space for about 75% growth.
• Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes.
• Develop gluten strength in the dough with several rounds of stretching and folding. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes between each round.
• After 4-6 hours of bulk fermentation (since the initial mixing), the dough will have expanded in size by 50-75%.
• Refrigerate the covered bowl for 6-12 hours to enhance the flavor; or you can finish the first rise at room temperature, moving onto the next step when the dough has almost doubled in size.
• Dividing, Pre-Shaping, and Final Proof
• If you refrigerated the dough, let it warm up for about an hour before proceeding to the next step.
• Scrape the dough out of the bowl onto a clean, well-floured countertop. Divide it in two and shape the pieces into tight balls.
• Leaving a few inches between the balls for expansion, cover the dough with a damp cloth or large inverted baking pan for 1-2 hours for the final proof.
• Preheating, Shaping, and Dough Topping
• Thirty minutes before the end of the final proof, begin preheating your oven to 450F with a pizza stone or upside down baking sheet on the middle shelf.
• Prepare a large sheet of parchment paper (approx 15"x20") by sprinkling flour on it.
• Using your bench knife and a lightly floured hand, gently scoop up each dough. Stretching it out a bit as you lay it onto the parchment paper.
• Generously brush the tops of the doughs with the molasses-water or the egg-yogurt mixtures.
• Using fingertips that are wet from the mixtures, dimple a perimeter around the dough, pushing outward a bit as you go. Then dimple diagonal lines to make a diamond pattern and sprinkle generously with the seeds.
• Baking and Storage
• Load the dough into the oven with a pizza peel or large cutting board. I haven't found steam to be necessary but feel free to set up a steam system if you want.
• Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the top has golden brown spots. (Rotate the pide about 8 minutes in if they seem to be browning unevenly.
• Let the pide cool on a rack and cover or wrap if they're not eaten in one day.