I have never made naan bread and I rarely have much success with yeast in recipes. But, this naan bread recipe helped with my yeast bread problem. I really wanted to try and overcome my yeast problem and what better time to work on it than when social distancing is being enforced. Sour dough bread recipes were all the rage in 2020 but it looked like more work than I could manage. I researched many a naan bread recipe with and without yeast but this one was a nice combination of yeast and yogurt. Now that I had a recipe, I had to get yeast.
To make a long story short, there was no yeast anywhere in the city! All the social distancing, isolation and quarantine-ing going on had turned everyone into a pilgrim. Everyone was making their own bread. There was a resurgence of the domestic arts.
We couldn’t find flour or yeast anywhere! We gave up on working on my yeast problem. One Sunday we went for a Sunday drive to Manotick, Ontario. Manotick is a little town not far that outside of Ottawa, Ontario. It’s one of those quaint little towns by the river. We came across a grocery store on our walk in Manotick and of course checked for yeast. No yeast! We passed by a pizza place; decided to get a pizza to go.
During the wait, sitting outside on a patio enjoying the beautiful weather on our own, we started talking to the owner/server. The usual, Covid-19 this, social distancing that…and no yeast came up. Well, guess what happened? Not only did we get a lovely pizza we also got a little baggy of yeast! Wonderful people at the La Piazza in Manotick were kind enough to give me a little bag of yeast with which I started on my yeast problem. I had no problem with this recipe and using yeast. This beautiful pile of naan bread after my first attempt making them, was a welcome surprise! :o)
Vegan Naan Bread
Notes
References
Vegan Naan Bread, The Simple Veganista, URL: https://simple-veganista.com/vegan-naan-bread/
Ingredients
- 2 c flour
- 2 tsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp rapid rise fast acting yeast
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 c warm water (between 105F and 115F)
- 4 tbsp yogurt
- 2 tsp olive oil
Instructions
- In a large blow add the flour, yeast, sugar and slat and mix to combine.
- In another bowl, combine 3/4 c warm water with the yogurt and oil
- Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
- Mix wet and dry ingredients together.
- Dough will be rough & shaggy looking and sticky to touch.
- Knead the dough by pulling the dough ball onto itself about 5 times. Then form a ball.
- Tightly cover the bowl with saran wrap and let rest in a warm place for about 60-90 minutes. Over night is even better The warmer the better and the faster the dough will rise.
- One dough has risen it will have doubled in size.
- Fill a small bowl with flour and lightly sprinkle flat surface with flour.
- Put dough on the flat surface and sprinkle with flour.
- Shape the dough into a rectangle.
- Cut dough into 6 equal pieces.
- Roll each ball with a rolling pin, into an oval shape about 9"x4" and about 1/8" thick.
- Heat a skillet over medium-high heat until hot.
- Place flattened dough onto skillet.
- When bubbles start to appear, flip bread and cook the other side.
- Once the bread is done, garnish with olive oil or melted butter.
Notes
I didn’t know what kind of yeast was gifted to me, so I decided to use the note in the recipe and try the active dry yeast note. [1]
If using active dry yeast instead of rapid rise:
- Mix wet: In a medium bowl, dissolve 1 teaspoon of active dry yeast and 1 teaspoon of the sugar with 3/4 cup warm water (about 100°F). Let set for 10 minutes, or until frothy. Once the liquid is frothy, add the yogurt and olive oil.
- Mix dry: In a large bowl combine the flour, salt and remaining 1 teaspoon sugar.
- Combine the wet ingredients to the dry and follow remaining instructions as directed.
extras
There are so many recipes out there. Everyone who cooks and can put together a blog, is a recipe writing now. It’s both great and not great. Sometimes it can be frustrating to have to scroll through pages and pages of pictures, explanations, descriptions and instructions of details of how to make a particular dish before getting to the actual recipe. Some of the notes are valid and very relevant. However, it is nice to see the recipe and ingredients before going through all the details. So below are the notes and all the great pictures I took during the process of making naan bread. I’m particularly proud of how the yeast activated and got all poofy in the first picture! The last picture of the pile of naan is also a personal favourite! 🙂
I wasn’t sure whether the yeast I was gifted was the rapid activating yeast or just the regular yeast. So I just decided to err on the side of caution and assumed it was the latter and used the process in the notes above for when using dry active yeast. I’ve never had success with yeast so I attempted to activate 2 separate teaspoons of yeast. Both worked out perfectly and looked like this!
I was supposed to let the dough rise for 60-90 minutes. It did start to rise and puff up within the hour which was a nice surprise, but I ended up falling asleep while waiting so the dough rose over night. This is what it looked like. Very puffy and at least double the size. It’s hard to see in this picture but the next picture is great!
I love this picture because you can see all the air bubbles from the dough rising. Nice!
The dough makes 6 naan breads. After the dough rose, I shaped it into a rectangle and cut it into six equal pieces. Each piece of dough was rolled into a ball and each ball rolled out with a rolling pin into a flatten jelly bean shape approximately 9″x4″ and about 1/8″ thick. I just rolled it out until I got what I thought was a naan shape.
Next comes frying the rolled out jelly bean. The first one I made wasn’t bad but after a frying a few more I noticed that the hotter the pan, the better. I put some oil in the pan for the first one and that was fine but I noticed after doing a few more, less is more. So less oil the pan and a hot pan seems to work best. It doesn’t take long for the naan to start bubbling up in the pan, like in this picture.
Here is a picture of the first side of friend naan bread. I was very impressed at how naan-like the naan bread looked!
And here is a picture of my two attempts at the naan bread recipe with yeast. My “pile-o-naan” was a great hit! They didn’t last long and I shared with at least three others in my Covid bubble, from a safe distance, of course!
Reference
- Vegan Naan Bread, The Simple Veganista, URL: https://simple-veganista.com/vegan-naan-bread/#tasty-recipes-24504
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