Sunflower Rosemary Flatbread / Pizza Crust

Over the weekend, I was looking around for a new pizza crust recipe and I stumbled across this handsome one. The thing that initially attracted me to him was the beer. It’s hard for me to resist a good beer … mmm … a nice nut brown ale. I was a little disappointed there wasn’t much left for me to drink. But I got over it soon enough. I mean, how could you stay mad at something that looks and smells (and tastes!) this good?

Sunflower Rosemary Flatbread (or Pizza Crust)

Adapted from Allrecipes.com. You can eat this as a flatbread or use it for pizza crust. I cut the dough into four pieces to make smaller flatbreads I could freeze, then pull out for fast meals when I’m in a hurry. It’s so easy to whip up a funky pizza on the spot when you have a good flatbread in the freezer.

• 1 cup beer (I used Leinenkugel Fireside Nut Brown Ale)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 cup unbleached white whole wheat flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
• 1/2 tablespoon of fresh rosemary, chopped fine
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Directions:

1. Put all the ingredients except the sunflower seeds in the bread machine and start it on the dough setting.
2. About 30 minutes into the cycle, when the machine beeps at you to add the “extra” ingredients, throw in the sunflower seeds. If you forget, don’t worry. Just knead them in just before you roll out the dough.
3. When the dough is ready, take it out and cut it into the desired number of flatbreads you want. I did four, which made for nice individual-sized pizza crusts. If you want bigger pizza crusts, cut it into two pieces. Shape each piece into a disc. Cover the dough and let it rest for 5- 10 minutes.
4. Flatten each disc with your hands to make a slightly larger disc. Cover and let rest another 10 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and put your pizza stone in to get good and hot (if you have one … if you don’t,  you can bake your flatbreads on a baking or pizza pan).
5. Dust your rolling surface with cornmeal, and use a rolling pin to roll each disc into a flat circle about 1/4 inch thick. Set each flatbread on a cornmeal-dusted pan or pizza peel once it is rolled out. At this point, you have a choice. If you want thick, fluffy flatbreads, spray the dough with cooking spray, cover with a clean dry kitchen towel and let the dough rise until it is the desired thickness. Or, for a thin crust, start cooking them as soon as they are rolled out. I made mine on the thin side, although by the time I got the fourth one in the oven, it was getting a little on the thick side.
6. Slide one crust at a time onto your hot pizza stone in the oven and bake at 425 for about 10 minutes or until the crust is a nice golden brown color.  If they start to get puffy spots while they’re cooking, poke them with a fork to burst the bubbles.
7. You can eat these as flatbread, with olive oil or a pizza sauce for dipping, or top them with your favorite pizza toppings. I used one for a potato pizza and froze these three for later. You’ll be seeing them again soon, I’m sure.

This recipe was shared at Midnight Maniac Meatless Mondays.