Unleavened Bread for Passover '4 '21

Passover is sometimes called the Festival of Unleaven Bread, because  After the killing of the firstborn, the Pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites go. But in their haste to leave Egypt, the Israelites could not let their bread rise and so they brought unleavened bread. ... To commemorate this, Jews do not eat leavened bread for eight days.

To be specific, in order for matzoh to be technically unleavened and appropriate for Passover, according to Jewish tradition, it must be started and completed within 18 minutes. This is because fermentation is believed to happen after 18 minutes of ground grain being in contact with water, and Jewish law requires only unleavened foods be eaten during the duration of Passover.

In order to keep the process within 18 minutes, it is important the recipe uses only a few simple ingredients and a large baking surface that is brought up to temperature before you begin mixing your ingredients.  

Bruce and I teamed up to make eight of these basic matzoh flatbreads in less than 15 minutes (start to finish)  using a stovetop flat griddle. We ate half of it right away, 

Homemade Matzoh

:

INGREDIENTS

•  4 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
•  1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling
•  2 tablespoons mild olive oil 
•  3/4 cup plus up to 1/2 cup warm water

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C). Ideally you would place a pizza stone on the bottom oven rack, but realistically a 10-by-15-inch baking sheet will work just fine.

Or you can use a electric griddle  on the high setting  so you can make more than on  bread at a time.

I am getting too old to safely be bending over a superheated oven, and our electric griddle doesn't get quite hot enough to  properly cook the flat bread so I used a large flat griddle pan atop our stove.

In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients, starting with just 3/4 cup water, until everything comes together to form a dough. If the dough seems dry, add a little more water, just a few drops at a time. Be sparing with the water and do not add so much that the dough becomes sticky. 

If you do not need the matzoh to be kosher for Passover, let the dough rest for 10 to 15 minutes. If you do need the matzoh to be kosher for Passover, proceed immediately to the next step so that you can attempt to finish everything in 18 minutes. You may want to ask for help to ensure that you complete it in time.

Divide the dough into 8 pieces. Flatten a piece slightly and pass it repeatedly through a pasta maker, reducing the thickness each time until you eventually reach the thinnest or minimum setting on your pasta machine. Alternately, you can simply roll the dough as thinly as possible with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface. Repeat with the remaining dough pieces.

Trim the rolled-out dough pieces into rectangles. (How many pieces of matzoh you get depends on how thinly you rolled the dough.) Use a fork to prick holes in the surface of the dough. lf salted matzoh are desired, brush or spray the dough surface lightly with water and sprinkle with salt to taste.

Carefully place some of the rectangles onto the pizza stone or baking sheet. They should fit snugly but should not touch. Bake until the surface of the matzoh is golden brown and bubbly, 30 to 90 seconds. 

Using tongs, carefully flip the matzoh pieces and continue to bake until the other side is golden browned and lightly blistered, 15 to 30 seconds. Keep careful and constant watch to keep the matzoh from burning; the exact baking time will vary from oven to oven and will get longer with subsequent batches. You want to let the matzoh get a few dots of light brown but don’t let the matzoh turn completely brown or it will taste burnt. 

Let the matzoh cool before serving. 

I stored what we didn't eat right away in a ziplock bag and toasted  some of it the next day in our electric toaster oven.  Toasting it  gave in  lovely crispy cracker -like texture. 

Original Recipe from  https://leitesculinaria.com/84910/recipes-homemade-matzoh.html3 .