How to make Turkmen Bread

In Turkmenistan this bread is cooked in clay oven, since we don’t have that luxury here, it is best to be cooked in gas oven on a pizza stone. Key to that is to heat the pizza stone along with the oven. I make the dough in the morning, bake around lunch time and have some fresh bread with lunch. Bread freezes really well, you can freeze it in a freezer Ziploc bag or just double up on grocery bags. When you reheat it tastes and smells like it just came out of the oven.

Makes 1 bread:

• 2 cups of flour
• ½ teaspoon of yeast
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• 4/5 of cup of hot water from the tap
• 1 tablespoon of butter

Make the dough, after the dough is complete, insert chunks of butter into the dough, and do not mix.

Cover with plastic bag, and blanket; keep in a warm place. Let rise for at least 1 hour up to 2 hours. Roll the dough to desired size; let it sit for 15 minutes while the oven heats up. Preheat the oven to 550F. When heating up the oven, make sure pizza stone is inside; pizza stone has to be hot too. Dip your hand in cold water and coat the top of the bread with little bit of water right before putting it in the oven (will make the bread shiny). I cook 2 breads at a time; therefore I put 2 pizza stones, one on each shelf. Cook the breads for 10 minutes and switch shelves and cook for another 5 minutes. If making only one bread at a time, then put the pizza stone on the lowest shelf and cook for 13 minutes. As soon as you take the bread out of the oven, lightly drizzle with water and cover with kitchen towel.

If you are making more than one and plan on freezing the bread, as soon as you can handle the bread by hand, place it in a freezer Ziploc bag and put it in the freezer. To heat the bread, place in microwave for 1 minute, then turn upside down and heat for another minute. Bread will smell and taste fresh.