Adam Wolfers Wood fired laffa bread

Method

1. For fermented potato purée: Pre-heat oven to 200ºC. Place potatoes on wired rack in oven for 45–60 minutes or until the potato can be easily skewered. Take out of oven.

2. With a turning knife, scrape skin off the potato, making sure not to take too much of the potato itself. Using a potato masher or perforated tray, pass potato through while still hot. Once passed through, weigh potato on scales and work out 3% of its weight to give required quantity of salt to use as seasoning. 

3. Place seasoned potato into a clean, airtight container, pressing down flat so there are no air pockets. Leave out at room temperature (approx. 20ºC) for at least 3–4 days. The potato should have a nice, balanced sourness to it, and be white in colour – if brown, it means air has entered and it has oxidised.

4. For making a starter from scratch (heritage grain starter): Place your apples in a warm spot for 3–4 days, covered. Cut out the core of the apple, making sure you reserve as much flesh as possible, keeping the skin on. Discard the core. In a blender, blend the apples with 100g of water to form apple purée (chunks of skin is perfectly fine). Leave in the sun for 48 hours, covered. Add 100g flour, and leave for 24 hours. Add a further 200g heritage grain flour and mix well with clean hands. Leave for another 24 hours. Take out 100g starter and discard the rest. Using clean hands, mix 200g water and remaining heritage grain flour (200g) with the 100g starter. Leave out at room temperature for 6–8 hours or until it has large air bubbles formed and is very active. Continue the same process for 3–4 days. If you aren’t using straight away you can store in the fridge for up to 2 days, but you must continue feeding otherwise your starter can die. You can store in freezer for up to 6 months and bring back to life, by using the same process.

5. For the potato starter: In a clean bowl, add fermented potato purée, heritage grain starter, water and the heritage grain flour, mix well with your hands, making sure that the potato is completely combined – it should be a thick paste. Leave in a clean container at room temperature for 5–6 hours covered, or until large air bubbles have formed and starter is active (a good test is to add a small amount into some water – it should float to the surface).

 6. For the laffa bread dough: In a bread mixer, add water, dry yeast and potato sourdough starter. Mix on low speed for 2 minutes. Add all the flours and keep at low speed, mixing for 2 minutes until combined. Turn up speed to full and beat dough for 10 minutes, before letting rest for 5 minutes. 

7. Add table salt and mix at medium-high speed for another 5 minutes. Take dough out of bread mixer and place in a greased container. Oil spray or rub with vegetable oil lightly on top of dough, seal container and put straight into fridge. Refrigerate at 4ºC for at least 12 hours.

8. Take dough out and spray a clean bench with a light coating of oil spray or vegetable oil. Portion dough into 120g balls – it should be elastic and stretchy. Roll the dough into tight balls, spray, and let rest covered on bench for 30 minutes. 

9. For the second fold, ensure you seal the base of the balls by rolling into a ball, turning over and pinching the base of each gently with lightly greased hands to make sure there are no creases or air 

bubbles that can affect the shape of the bread. Place in an airtight, sealed container. Wait at least 1 hour to prove, then place in fridge and rest for a minimum of 4 hours (up to 12 hours).

10. To cook the laffa bread, pre-heat over to full heat (ideally 240ºC). Place a metal pot of water inside your oven. Lightly dust a bench with fine semolina, lightly dusting the top of the dough as well. With semolina-dusted hands, gently make a rough round circle shape with your fingertips, stretching the dough and moving it gently in a clockwise direction until you have a small round pizza. Using a bread scraper or pizza paddle, place bread onto a cast iron pan or hot stone and place straight into oven. Throw some ice cubes in the pot of water in oven and close immediately. 

9. Leave in oven for 3–5 minutes and turn oven down to 200ºC, cooking for a further 4 minutes or until you can insert a skewer cleanly in and out of the bread, which should have blistered golden brown on the outside (if using a woodfired oven, it will have blacker spots on the dough). 

10. Take bread out of oven and brush lightly with garlic oil, before sprinkling with some sea salt, ready to serve. 

Chef’s notes: If you don’t have the time to make the potato starter using a heritage starter made from scratch, skip steps 1-5 and use a regular store-bought starter in place of the potato starter in step 6.