Toaster-baked whole wheat flatbreads

Some of my best recipes come from flops.

This week, my meal plan included homemade whole wheat hamburger buns. Inspired by something I read on the internet about freezer cooking and baking, I decided to make the dough up until the second rise, and when the buns were the size I wanted them, freeze them for later baking.

Big mistake.

When I got three of them out of the freezer, they already looked a bit sad. Baking made them deflate altogether, leaving us with hamburger buns that looked more like large chips. My loyal husband may even have laughed at how silly they looked. My pride was greatly dented.

Loath as I am to throw anything out, however, I decided to see what would happen if I dropped one of the remaining buns frozen into the toaster on a high setting. That's right, the toaster--I don't have a toaster oven.

Well, it was amazing. It baked right there in the toaster, coming out deliciously golden on both sides, with a moist, tender center and a texture rather like pita bread. It didn't even deflate as much as the ones I'd put in the oven. Now how's THAT for a budget recipe? You don't even have to heat up your oven! A couple of minutes in a hot toaster, and you have lovely fresh bread for dinner. Yum!

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
2 teaspoons active dried yeast
2 teaspoons sugar or honey
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (or any other kind of oil; olive tastes best)
1 1/2 cups white bread flour (bread flour has a higher gluten content, but plain all-purpose will work too)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Whisk the first three ingredients together in a large bowl. Leave for ten minutes in a warm-ish place, or at least a place where there aren't any cold drafts, until the yeast starts going into fluffy bubbles.

Sprinkle the salt over the mixture and add the olive oil. Give it a stir.

Whisk the two flours together in a medium bowl.

Add 2 1/2 cups of the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon to form a ball of sticky dough.

Turn the dough out onto a generously floured counter top and knead the dough for around 5 minutes, adding the extra half-cup of flour little by little to stop it sticking to the counter. You know you've kneaded it enough when the dough is smooth and satiny-textured and doesn't stick to the counter or your hands. (You can also use a standing mixer with a dough hook for this.)

Wash and dry your bowl, then coat the inside with a little oil. Place your dough in the bowl, cover the bowl with a clean towel, and leave it in a warm place until the dough has roughly doubled in size. Depending on how warm the warm place is, this can take as little as 30 and as many as 120 minutes. If your oven has a bread proof setting, you can put it in there. Make sure, obviously, that you use a metal or glass bowl if you do this.

When the dough is risen, knead it again briefly to get some of the air out. (It will make a satisfying whoosh.) Divide the dough into 9 equal pieces and shape the into rather flat buns. Place them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Let the buns rise in a warm place for a little while, but keep an eye on them, because you don't want them to be so thick you can't get them in the toaster.

Now put the baking sheet in the freezer and let the flatbreads freeze through. When they seem completely frozen, place them in an airtight bag or container, and put them back in the freezer. They will keep perfectly well in there for a couple of weeks.

When you need them, take out a couple of flatbreads and place them in the toaster (don't defrost them first--you don't want a sticky mess of dough baking onto the insides of your toaster). Put your toaster on a medium-high setting, and toast/bake the flatbreads that way. Keep close watch on the toaster--you don't want this to burn. You'll figure out pretty quickly what setting you need to have the toaster on for this to work.

Slather the freshly-baked, freshly-toasted flatbreads with the toppings of your choice--butter, cottage cheese, hummus, whatever! Not to blow my own trumpet, but this is seriously one of the best inventions I have ever made.