Basic Lavash

Ingredients

 * 1 pkg. yeast
 * 2 cups Warm water
 * 2 tbl. Sugar
 * 5 1/2 cups All purpose flour
 * 2 tsp. salt

Directions

 * 1) Lightly oil a bowl for the dough. Mix the yeast, water and Sugar in a large mixing bowl.
 * 2) Add the flour and salt and mix until it forms a well-blended but somewhat soft dough.
 * 3) Knead the dough by hand or machine. If by hand, turn it out on a floured board and work it until it is smooth and elastic, approximately 10 minutes.
 * 4) If using a dough hook on an electric mixer, knead the dough at the slowest speed for about 5 minutes.
 * 5) Pat the dough into a ball and put it in the oiled bowl.
 * 6) Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and set it in a warm, draft-free place to rise until the dough has doubled in bulk, about 30 to 40 minutes.
 * 7) When the dough has doubled, turn it out on a floured board, punch it down, and knead it again until there is no air left in it. #Divide the dough into 8 round mounds, place them on the board, cover again with a towel, and let rise until almost doubled, about 30-minutes.
 * 8) While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 450 F.
 * 9) Position a rack as close as possible to the oven bottom. flour a 12x15-in baking sheet.
 * 10) When the 8 mounds of dough have risen, roll them out, one piece at a time into rectangles about 12x15 inches and about as thin as for a pizza.
 * 11) Puncture the entire surface at 1/2-inch intervals with the tines of a roasting fork.
 * 12) Bake the breads, one at a time, for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the tops are lightly browned.
 * 13) Remove each finished bread to a wire rack to cool and continue baking the remaining breads until all 8 are finished.
 * 14) During the baking, if any large bubbles start to puff up, puncture them immediately with a fork.
 * 15) The bread in the Middle East is traditionally a type of cracker bread called Lavash (Lawasha in Assyrian).
 * 16) This flat leavened bread is available in grocery stores and specialty markets and can be eaten as a cracker in the dry, crisp form in which it comes.
 * 17) However to serve along with a meal, it is preferable to dampen it so that it becomes more bread like.
 * 18) Moisten the lavash, one cracker at a time, under cold running water, making sure that both sides are completely wet; place in a plastic bag for 3 hours, at the end of which time the bread will be pliable and chewy.
 * 19) Lavash prepared in this fashion is also used for Aram sandwiches.
 * 20) In the old country, a lavash bread would bake in a clay bottomed oven in 2 to 3 minutes.
 * 21) You can get much the same result baking on a ceramic baking tile or directly on the floor of a gas oven

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