r/GreatBritishBakeOff • u/aalexy1468 • 1d ago
Bake-Along Hollywood flatbreads
I first heard of the challenge before watching the episode and baked before watching. I decided to make these before watching. I timed myself, gave myself the benefit of the recipe (but not method), gave myself time to find all ingredients, and stopped the timer when unloading/ the dishwasher (sprung open when baking and didnt want a steam sauna in the kitchen). Total time, 58:44.
I used 80% rouge de bordeaux and 20% sonora flour since I wanted to bring some to my whole grain baking club today. I also used some clearance costco blue cheese and grapes (note: use strongly favored ingredients).
I used a comal (flat, easy to flip on) on a gas stove. If I had to do this on the dinky GBBO stove in two nonstick pans, that would be a serious handicap. Also, I used a very heavy marble rolling pin which made it exceedingly easy to roll these out. If I had Yannis' fondant pin, it'd be another handicap.
For the grapes, I washed them, chucked them onto a parchmented pan with oil and honey on air roast default (17min, 230F, fan). When out, I let cool while working the dough and ran a pair of scissors through them because they were too big and bursty. Seeing the contestants slowly slice the grapes drove me insane!!! You're under a time crunch.
Some things: grapes would rupture when rolling, so had to scrape the bench before each roll out. The flavors were greatly overshadowed by the flour, the cheese was mild and the grapes were just sort of wet. Better half said they needed butter.
I'm not sure I'd make these again, but they weren't that hard. But I understand how people were struggling so hard since I'd be struggling sans comal, marble Comal, and air roast function.
17
u/lemeneurdeloups 1d ago
I learned from this show that flatbreads could be filled. I always just thought of them as a very simple and primitive bread that was used for scooping other foods.
I think that filling aspect is that which threw all the cast off. They couldn’t imagine rolling that bit of filling flat enough and so none did …
•
u/have_no_plan 7h ago
Try a peshwari or keema naan for a cool twist on your usual naan bread experience. They are sweet/savoury respectively, and turn the naan more into a fish in its own right rather than a support act.
I actually do prefer plain flatbreads for the most part, but it's great to mix it up sometimes.
76
u/Tbplayer59 1d ago
I still can't picture stuffing a flatbread and having it be flat.
28
8
u/Ultra_HR 1d ago
the recipe makes it clear how it should be done: https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/paul-hollywood-blue-cheese-roasted-grape-flatbreads/
you slice the grapes thin, not cut them in half. you roll out your dough to the full size of the final flatbread, put the grape slices and crumbled blue cheese in the middle, take the outer edge of the rolled dough and fold it over the filling so the filling is completely covered, then you roll the dough flat to its full size again.
the filling is made of flat things (thin slices of grape) or things that will roll flat easily (small pieces of crumbled blue cheese) so it should be very easy to get it rolled as flat as a flatbread would normally be.
the problem the contestants had is that they did not think hard enough, and so they just cut the grapes in half instead of slicing them thin.
•
8
u/I_heart_naptime 1d ago
Is this style of flatbread meant to be eaten as is or dipped into something?.....
8
u/aalexy1468 1d ago
I asked the better half if butter would make it better. "You read my mind" and out came the butter. Maybe if you had proper stilton you wouldn't need it
7
u/Peppy-Paneer 1d ago
These flatbreads are just stuffed Paratha !
5
u/mckenner1122 1d ago
We said they should have called it “stuffed naan”! Our favorite Indian take-out always includes a garlic-and-herb stuffed naan with huge chunks of roasted garlic cloves, brushed with herbed ghee and it’s so stinking good!
7
24
u/SpiritusAudinos 1d ago
Did you taste the grapes? That was the only thing I was weirded out about in that recipe
42
u/Iittletart 1d ago
Roasted grapes with blue cheese is a classic flavor pairing. Very tasty.
1
1
u/TakeMeToTill 1d ago
I really want to try it! How do you roast the grapes so they don’t get everything soggy and gross?
5
u/aalexy1468 1d ago
Yeah, both my grapes and blue cheese were blah before the bake. So it turned out blah after. If you have a wedge of stilton going bad in your icebox, make this!
•
u/nighttimecoldnflu 12h ago
Paul being shocked that they all made a mess of roasted grape and blue cheese flatbreads - ROASTED GRAPE? GRAPE?! I have never heard of baking with grapes in my life. I’m from the southeast US and we make some freaky stuff but baking grapes just seems so bizarre to me! It doesn’t sound bad necessarily, I’m just having difficulty with the concept haha
1
u/Kabochakiti 1d ago
How long did you take from start to finish?
6
u/aalexy1468 1d ago
58mins 44 seconds. Keep in mind marble rolling pin had them thin in 4 passes max. And the 350C comal had each one done with one flip (90secs a side)
-1
u/L_Cranston_Shadow 1d ago
Congrats, you are more intelligent than any of this season's contestants.
49
u/IceDragonPlay 1d ago edited 1d ago
I made them just a short while ago, just 4 of them and that took 1 hour 5 minutes.
I pre-grated sharp cheddar cheese to substitute for the blue cheese.
The dough was not ready after 15 min rest in my oven with the light on (my proofing box), needed 5 more minutes, but could have used more.
Grapes sliced thinly pushed themselves out to the edges of the roundish shape while rolling. So tried reversing the direction of the roll but it really did not help.
The first two were resistant to rolling thinly, but I only had enough surface area to roll out one at a time, so they had to go into the pan for frying at 7-8” wide. By the third piece of dough it had relaxed enough to roll out thinly and get what ended up a 10” imperfect circle.
The properly thin flatbread tasted floury unless you hit a slice of grape. Even the cheese did not really win over the plain floury taste. I think there was not enough salt in the recipe for me.
It is not something I would make again, but it was an interesting exploration. And as I suspected I would not hit the time. Even with a cheat of using an air fryer to roast the grapes.