Parchment Bread
- 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional for rolling out the dough
- ½ cup semolina flour
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- About ¾ cup warm water
- Cornmeal for dusting
Instructions:
These are large, dramatic wafer-thin crackers adapted from the traditional Sardinian flatbread called carta di musica.
- Mix the flour, semolina, and salt in a mixing bowl. Gradually add just enough warm water to form a dough. The object is to add enough water to make a solid, quite soft mass of dough (softer, say, than pizza dough), but not so much that the dough becomes sticky rather than tacky. Knead the dough until it becomes elastic and smooth, about 3 minutes. Form it into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and let it rest for at least 2 hours. Refrigerate the dough if allowing it to rest for longer than 2 hours.)
- Place a pizza stone or unglazed baking tiles on the center rack and preheat the oven to 450°F.
- After the dough has rested (bring to room temperature if chilled), unwrap it, divide it into 8 equal pieces, and shape each one into a ball. Cover with a towel and let rest for 10 minutes.
- Using plenty of flour to prevent the dough from sticking to the rolling surface, roll each ball into a very thin circle 8 to 9 inches across. You should be able to read through the dough.
- One at a time, transfer the parchment bread circles to a pizza peel dusted with cornmeal and slide them onto the pizza stone or tiles in the oven. Add only as many circles as will fit comfortably on the stone or tiles without touching, and bake for about 1 minute on each side, or until golden and crispy; they’re easy to turn over with a pair of tongs. Remove from the oven and let cool. Repeat until all the circles are cooked. Parchment bread can be stored for about 3 days in an airtight container. Don’t refrigerate or they’ll become soggy.