Sourdough Aish Baladi (Egyptian Flatbread) – Breadtopia

A couple of months ago, a friend sent me a video (below) about how to bake the traditional Egyptian flat bread, Aish Baladi, in a home oven. Aish (or eish) baladi is a fluffy pita speckled with bran flakes and eaten daily or even multiple times a day by many people in Egypt. The word for bread in Egypt, aish, also means “life,” hinting at the importance of bread in the culture; and baladi means traditional or authentic, indicating the foundational role of this particular bread. Although I’m using wheat, water, and leavening microbes from more than 10,000 miles away from Egypt, and I don’t have a clay oven made with sediment from the Nile River, I really wanted to try this bread. I gave the recipe in the video a go with sourdough starter instead of the yeast preferment in the video, and I tried both the suggested refined flour and also emmer wheat, which is the traditional wheat of Egypt.

[Jump to recipe]

Part of my inspiration to try this bread comes from all the delicious ways in which it’s eaten in Egypt. Here’s an excerpt from an article in the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram describing how this bread is traditionally served throughout the day.

Baladi bread was served at practically every meal. At breakfast it accompanied fuul (stewed fava beans) drizzled with olive oil, along with fried or boiled eggs and cheese. It was eaten with tehina and molasses, the latter at one time procured in urns from Qena in Upper Egypt but now store-bought.

At lunch, baladi bread was a versatile accompaniment for every dish: it was dipped into molokhiya (green mallow) or cut up into little triangles to mop up sauce and gravy from plates. Supper included loaves of baladi bread packed with white baramili (barrel-ripened) cheese along with arugula, a taste to die for.

Unlike pita or naan that I’ve made in the past, the dough for this bread is quite wet and the proofing process involves a bed of flour and bran flakes (also called wheat bran) that acts as a nonstick proofing surface. The hydration makes aish baladi a bit more spongy than typical pita, and the bran coating adds a toasted aroma to the bread.

In the video below I learned that the shaping of this wet dough has a steep learning curve where you essentially drip-roll balls of dough between your hands and then onto the bran flakes. The baker in the video notes that you can also use an ice cream scoop, and after a few attempts at using my hands, I happily switched to the ice cream scoop. I suggest you watch the video to see the method for shaping by hand, as well as how to maneuver the dough onto the peel before loading it into the oven.

Ideally you want to have the following equipment for this recipe but I’ve also added workarounds in parentheses:

Ice cream scoop (shape by hand)

Two large pans at least 13×17 inches, for proofing, one acts as the cover (a large deep pan, plastic wrap as the cover)

Wood peel (parchment paper)

Baking stone or steel (inverted baking sheet)

Here are photos of the steps in the process. The images are of the emmer whole grain flour batch unless otherwise noted with the words “AP” (all purpose) or “bread flour.” In the recipe notes, I discuss the performance of the different flours and the target dough hydration. Different flours absorb more or less water and the recipe works with a range of dough consistencies — from terrifyingly wet to easy to stretch and transfer.

Process Photo Gallery

Sourdough Aish Baladi (Egyptian Flatbread)

The traditional Eqyptian flatbread Aish Baladi is a uniquely fluffy pita with aromatic oven-toasted bran flakes on the exterior. Made with emmer whole grain wheat or all purpose flour, this bread is delicious for both sweet and savory applications, and the high hydration dough and unique shaping and proofing setup are fun challenges for the home baker.

Servings

8-10 pocket breads

Ingredients

• 400 grams flour (3+ cups) *see notes
• 290 grams water (1 cup + 3-4 Tbsp) *see notes
• 200 grams ripe sourdough starter (3/4 cup)
• 10 grams salt (1 3/4 tsp)

For the proofing sheet or pan (this can be saved in the freezer and reused)

• 250 grams wheat bran
• 125 grams flour

Overall Baker’s Percentage (with sourdough starter in the flour and water totals)

• 100% flour
• 78% water
• 2% salt

Instructions

• For my test batches, all the fermentation (bulk and final proof) was done at room temperature in a cold winter kitchen, high 60s Fahrenheit, and my process took about 8 hours from mixing to loading the dough into the oven. In a summer kitchen, the process for this bread could be much shorter, depending on your ambient temperature. It is also fine to refrigerate the dough after or during the bulk fermentation to extend the process. Note that the feeding of your sourdough starter to build 200 grams is another chunk of time: overnight or as little as 4 hours if the feeding ratio is small e.g. 1:1:1.
• Holding back some of the water (about 45 grams or 3 Tbsp), combine the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix for 2-3 minutes. If you’re mixing by hand, try the rubaud method. If the dough wraps around the hook or if it can be lifted with one hand out of the bowl, add the reserved water to make the dough wetter. See the notes below or the photos in the gallery for info on target dough consistency.
• Continue mixing another 3-4 minutes, ideally until you can stretch the dough outward 5-6 inches before it breaks. If using emmer whole grain flour, the stretch isn’t very strong.
• Transfer the dough to a straight-walled container if you have one. Cover and let the dough rise until it has expanded by about 75% .
• Mix the bran and flour for the proofing stage. Cover the bottom of a baking sheet or large baking pan, minimum 13 x 17 inches, with the mixture.
• Using a spatula, pull the fermented dough away from the side of the bowl and stir a bit to de-gas it.
• With a damp ice cream scoop, scoop up dough and transfer it to the bran on the proofing sheet. You should get 8-9 scoops, so space things out for three rows of three dough balls. If shaping by hand, watch the video — you will need a floured hand and a damp hand. Cover the dough with a second baking sheet or pan of the same size. If using plastic wrap, make sure it doesn’t touch the dough.
• The dough shouldn’t need to proof much longer than the oven preheat so begin preheating your oven to 500°F with a baking stone or steel on a middle rack. My oven needs about 30 minutes to fully preheat the stone and I test it with an infrared thermometer.
• Use some of the bran-and-flour mixture to dust your peel.
• Dust the top of a dough with flour and flatten it a bit with your fingers if it is domed, then slide the fingers of both hands through the bran and under a dough. Lift and wiggle your fingers a bit to shake off some of the excess bran as you transfer it to the peel. Stretch the dough a bit so it is even. Aim for the dough to be between 1/4 and 1/2 inches thick for a fluffy pocket. Slide the dough onto the hot stone.
• Bake for about 4 minutes or until the pocket has formed. You don’t need to flip it. Occasionally with the low-gluten flour emmer, the dough won’t blow up into a pocket. Give these breads a couple more minutes to bake through.
• Repeat this process with all the doughs. I usually can fit four breads on the stone at once.
• Use tongs to remove the aish baladi from the oven when they are done.
• Let cool a bit on a rack or serve warm. Store in a bag or beeswax wrap for 1-2 days, freeze after.

Notes

* Water Amount and Flour Choices: Start by holding back some of the water in the recipe, mix, then add as much additional water as needed to get a dough that is still dry enough to stretch when you pull a piece outward, but wet enough that it almost pours from the bowl. If you use all purpose flour, you may not need the entire 290 grams of water. Likewise you’ll need less water if you use emmer whole grain flour but sift out the bran to use on your proofing sheet. If you use bread flour or stronger whole wheat or high extraction flour, your dough will likely need more than 290 grams water to reach the desired consistency. See the photo gallery for visuals of target consistency.