Crisp Flat Bread with Herbs

 

Fine restaurants often serve a lovely bread basket that includes crisp breadsticks and flatbreads. They are very easy to make and are a nice addition to your entertaining table at home. They can be prepared a day in advance. I make this dough in a Bosch bread mixer but you can try it with a large food processor or another mixer, or, of course, it can be done by hand.

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Ingredients:

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1 3/4 cups flour

1/4 cup semolina flour

3/4 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

Olive oil for brushing

Additional coarse salt for sprinkling (Maldon or fleur de sel)

Rosemary, thyme for sprinkling

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Directions:

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Combine flour, water and salt in a bread mixer and knead for 7 minutes until dough is elastic. Remove from mixer, place in a bowl, cover and let rest about 20 minutes to relax the gluten.

Line two baking sheets with silpat liners or foil.

Divide dough into 4 pieces and work with one piece at a time. Sprinkle the work surface with flour and roll the dough into a rectangle the size of the baking sheet. You need to dust it with plenty of flour so it doesn’t stick. The dough sheet must be very  thin. Don’t worry about the shape as you will break it into pieces before serving, but try to get it flat.

Roll the sheet of dough over the rolling pin and transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Brush dough gently with olive oil and then  sprinkle with Maldon salt or Fleur de Sel and with some of the thyme or rosemary.

Repeat with remaining pieces of dough. You can bake these 2 at a time, rotating the baking sheets once through the baking.

Bake the crisps in a 450℉ oven until crisps begin to brown in spots.

Remove from oven and let cool on a rack. Break into large pieces and serve in a cloth lined bread basket together with bread sticks and slices of good breads.