I have never ever had the courage to make flatbreads. Until today, that is when I decided to take the plunge. I’ve always admired people who can bake different kinds of bread and to be honest I was rather nervous about doing it.  More and more recently, though I have been getting disappointed with shop bought bread.  It either doesn’t taste of anything or bloats me up.  I would love to bake all my own bread for my family but being as I work 3 days a week I don’t always have time to devote to it.

I had been looking through my Jo Wheatley recipe book “A Passion For Baking” which as you will know from my previous posts is a huge favourite of mine.  Jo runs a monthly competition on her blog Jo’s Blue Aga and also through her Facebook page. She chooses a recipe from A Passion For Baking and her fans are invited to bake the recipe and submit the photograph to her to be included in a competition. A couple of months ago she set the competition for her Halloumi Cheese and Chilli Flatbreads. Although I have never entered the competition as I know I wouldn’t stand a chance of winning, I thought I would love to try baking the flatbreads myself at home. However, life got in the way and I never got round to making them. The packet of Halloumi cheese stayed unopened in the fridge. Thankfully it had a very long shelf life!

Today though, I decided to try them once and for all. We were having a day catching up at home after I had been out and about yesterday. I wanted to catch up on cleaning, ironing and other tidying up jobs. As the weather hasn’t been brilliant, it didn’t matter that we were inside.  I chose not to cook a big roast but to have soup and the flatbreads for lunch, followed by chilli and jacket potatoes for tea.

Here’s how I made them:

Please note: I made two substitutions as I didn’t have the right ingredients in. You are meant to use Greek Yoghurt in the dough but I didn’t have this so I used half fat creme fraiche instead. It seemed to work ok. I noticed my halloumi cheese was a light version, don’t know if that made a difference or not to the recipe although it did look and feel rubbery to touch as I crumbled it up. The oil to brush on the pan was also meant to be a chilli infused one, I didn’t have any of that either so I just used ordinary olive oil.

At first when I brought the flatbreads on a plate to the table, my daughter said “Why have you made pancakes?” but I explained to her that they were a little bit like naan breads. They went down well with all of the family and we are definitely going to make them again. We were thinking of other flavours we could add to them instead of cheese and chilli. My son said “Nutella!”  If only!

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx