Armenian matnakash bread in the oven

Step-by-step cooking

1. Step 1:

   

   Necessary products. I use Makfu flour. You look at your flour, you may need more of it.

2. Step 2:

   

   Heat 100 ml of water, add sour cream, sugar and yeast, stir everything well. Pour in the yeast slowly so that they do not get up a stake.

3. Step 3:

   

   Cover the bowl and put it in a warm place for 15 minutes. As soon as the sourdough begins to settle, it means that it is ready.

4. Step 4:

   

   Sift flour with salt into a large bowl, make a recess, pour in yeast and the rest of the water, also warm.

5. Step 5:

   

   Slowly raking the flour from the edges, knead the dough. If you feel that it turns out cool-pour some water. If the dough is too thin, then on the contrary, add a little flour. Flour is very different, so it can take both more and less than according to the recipe. Focus on the consistency of the dough - at the beginning of the kneading it will be quite sticky, but it will gather into a lump.

6. Step 6:

   

   Lubricate the table and hands with oil, dump out the dough and start kneading with handles. It takes a long time to knead, about 20 minutes. That's the secret of this bread! When the dough begins to peel off from the hands and becomes elastic, we roll it up, lubricate it with oil from all sides, put it in a bowl.

7. Step 7:

   

   Cover with a lid or tie with gauze, and put in a warm place for at least an hour. The dough should increase in volume three times. That's how it will be. It will ferment a lot!

9. Step 8:

   

   After that, we put the dough on the table, crumble it, cut it into two parts. Such oval blanks are obtained.

10. Step 9:

    

    Take one blank, put it on a baking sheet (oiled or covered with paper) and stretch it with your hands, giving a round or oval shape. By the way, matnakash is translated from Armenian as stretched fingers. The thickness is about one and a half cm .

11. Step 10:

    

    Then we make grooves along the perimeter and in the middle. I did it with my fingers, you can use some kind of tool, for example, a roller for cutting dough.

12. Step 11:

    

    Cover with a damp towel and let it come up for 10-15 minutes. Then lubricate with water mixed with oil (about 2 tablespoons of warm boiled water, mix quickly with 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil and immediately apply) and make the grooves again.

13. Step 12:

    

    Put in a very hot oven, 300-320 degrees. Bake the matnakash for 10 minutes. That's how it turns out.

14. Step 13:

    

    Sprinkle the bread with water, cover with two towels and leave to move away from the oven. In the meantime, we bake the second blank in exactly the same way. We get two wonderful ruddy matnakash.

15. Step 14:

    

    They say that this bread does not get stale for a week! But we eat it very quickly, so we can't check it. Have a good baking!