Soft Wrap Bread

Recipe by Sue Gray
207 Reviews 4.6 out of 5 stars

Let's start with the sandwich basic: bread. There's sandwich bread — a rectangular loaf, baked in a pan and sliced. And sandwich rolls: think these Beautiful Burger Buns. And then there are the "flexible" breads, a variety of tortillas, wraps, or flatbreads designed to enfold, roll around, or cradle their fillings. We've become really enamored of these breads, including the thick, soft wraps below: they're easy to make, quick to bake, and sturdy enough to take wherever your meal ends up — indoors, outdoors, or in the car.

Prep
30 mins
Bake
16 mins
Total
2 hrs 15 mins
Yield
8 breads
Soft Wrap Bread

Instructions

Prevent your screen from going dark as you follow along.

  1. Place 2 cups (240g) of the flour into a bowl or the bucket of a bread machine, reserving the remaining flour for later. Pour the boiling water over the flour, and stir until smooth. Cover the bowl or bucket and set the mixture aside for 30 minutes.

  2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the potato flour (or flakes) and 1 cup (120g) of the remaining flour with the salt, oil and yeast.

  3. Add this to the cooled flour/water mixture, stir, then knead for several minutes — by hand, mixer or bread machine — to form a soft dough. Add additional flour only if necessary; if kneading by hand, keep your hands and work surface lightly oiled. A 5-minute knead in the bread machine, once it gets up to full kneading speed, is fine. Let the dough rise, covered, for 1 hour.

  4. Divide the dough into 8 pieces (each about the size of a large plum, around 3 ounces), cover, and let rest for 15 to 30 minutes.

  5. Roll each piece into a 7" to 8" circle, and dry-fry them (fry without oil) over medium heat for about 1 minute per side, until they're puffed and flecked with brown spots. Adjust the heat if they seem to be cooking either too quickly, or too slowly; cooking too quickly means they may be raw in the center, while too slowly will dry them out.

  6. Transfer the cooked breads to a rack, stacking them to keep them soft.

  7. Serve immediately, or cool slightly before storing in a plastic bag for up to 4 days. Freeze for up to a month.

Tips from our Bakers

  • We use a rather unusual method to make this bread: boiling water is added to the flour, "cooking" the starch and making the resultant dough soft and easy to roll out. In addition, pre-cooking the starch this way eliminates any possibility of a "starchy" taste in the final bread; all in all, these wrap-like rounds are better tasting than conventional flour tortillas or other wraps. Texture-wise, they're more like a Taco Bell Gordita or a pita bread than a tortilla, so if you like the bread in your sandwich to be a substantial part of the whole, this is a good recipe for your files.

  • This recipe works best with instant yeast because it dissolves during the kneading process, so you don't have to knead liquid into the dough. If you really prefer to use active dry yeast, use only 1 cup boiling water for the initial dough, dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup warm water, and add this mixture to the dough along with the potato flour mixture. It'll be somewhat "slippery" at first, but will knead in and eventually become smooth.

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