I’ve always been afraid of baking breads, because my past experience(s) with it haven’t been so great. But now with the lockdown and only the commercial bread being available in the market and no sight of artisanal breads and delicious stuff like croissants and foccacias that I love, I finally gave in and made some. The problem was that I have no active yeast at home and there’s none available in the market, because clearly I’m not the only one baking! So I read a few blog posts and articles which talked about “no yeast bread baking” and one such was an article by April Harris on The Independent UK, which called for buttermilk in place of yeast.
Mumma takes out fresh makkhan almost every two weeks from the malai that she collects from the milk and yesterday I asked her to keep some aside for me to try out this recipe, which honestly, turned out to be really good! Made some loaded foccacia and I’m mighty happy!
Here’s the recipe:
| Ingredients | Quantity |
| APF (maida) | 1 cup |
| Buttermilk | 1 cup |
| Levelled baking soda | 1/2tsp |
| Salt | 1/2tsp |
| Olive oil | 4tbsp |
| Sliced onions | 1 |
| Garlic | 5-6 |
| Olive | 5-6 |
| Cherry tomatoes | 7-8 |
| Herbs |
Method:
- In a bowl add APF, baking soda, salt and mix together
- To this slowly add buttermilk and knead the dough to a slightly sticky consistency and add 1tbsp olive oil to this
- Rest this dough for 30 mins
- After 30 mins, massage the dough to remove air bubbles from it and then place it on the baking tray and spread the dough, but not too much or your bread will come out thin like a papad!
- Add 3tbsp olive oil and massage it on the dough
- Add the toppings of your choice
- Put the baking tray in a pre-heated oven for 20 mins at 200C
- Eat this warm with tea/coffee or soup!
* In case of any queries, please leave a comment or write to me at delectable.reveries@gmail.com