I’m frequently making breads and desserts that are made without an oven. Whether it be puddings, icebox desserts, steamed cakes, or donuts. And lots of flatbreads!
Today it was Imeruli khachapuri—pillowy soft flatbread stuffed with cheese. I always feel this sort of thing is a bit cheap in that of course anything loaded with cheese will taste good to most people, but there’s no denying how satisfying a fluffy, warm bread with a mix of cheeses can be.
I happened to have some mozzarella cheese to use up, and also local queso de hoja. Reading about sulguni cheese it actually sounds very similar to our queso de hoja. Like fresh mozzarella, but firmer, tangier, saltier. The imeruli cheese is usually substituted with feta, but I had some open cream cheese and I thought with the two cheeses it would make a tasty combination. And it did. The queso de hoja does the heavy lifting, so there’s a nice amount of tang.
Normally I’m all about the yeast dough, but having just made a batch of kefir, I decided to go with the type of dough leavened with baking soda. I know that these doughs turn out beautifully tender thanks to kefir, yogurt, or sour cream. The end result was flatbreads that don’t taste any worse for their lack of yeast.