This is long post. Sorry for the bad formatting.

Unleavened bread.

Dough:

start with 2 cups whole wheat flour. Add luke warm water [if you used the microwave to heat water, make sure to stir it thoroughly and heat a few more seconds, stir again before using]. Add the water in small quantities and keep mixing with a fat spoon. once the dough reaches a malleable consistency, punch it several times, to a nice rhythm. The rhythm is important. some thing like Fold, Punch Rotate. F PR, FPPR. etc. do this as long as you like. After a [possibly long] while, the dough is very smoooth. But this is a bit sweet. Goes well with savory side dishes. And you can only make good flat breads with nice pockets with this dough. To get a better taste add a pinch or two of salt to the dry flour before mixing the water. Now this dough is good for sweet stuff. tastes awesome with Jam/Jelly Agave/Maple etc Syrup or my fav. Honey.

Baking process:

Let the dough rest for at least half an hour. make a huge ball, then roll it on a clean surface into a long cylinder. Then cut out disks. Roll each disk into a flat circular disks like Rotis or Pita bread. You really have to experiment with the thickness. The best way to cook them is on a thick cast iron skilet etc. Aluminium is your second preference. If you want to use an Oven, roll'em thick, and you might want to use AirBake or similar product.

Variations. * Try mixing sun dried[ dry roasted is second pref] spices like pepper powder or flakes etc. I love paprika powder :)

• Spread a drop of Oil or butter etc and fold your Roti and roll again, enjoy the layery goodness.

• For the dough try using Yogurt , Avacado etc.. Awesome :)

• Never use fresh herbs in the dough, use them after the cooking/baking etc. Or just before baking, don't mix/knead them into the dough.

Leavened:

• Yeast: Use Active Dry yeast [ not the instant rising variety] add a small amount to luke warm water, + a spoon of sugar or other natural sweetener like honey, cover with a kitchen paper or cloth and let it bubble for about ten minutes.

• Flour: If you want to try whole wheat flour, here are a few tips.

There are different kinds of wheat. Using a high protein flour will result in a fluffy soft bread. It will rise better, due to the gluten.

try to sift the husk out of the flour and keep it in a separate vessel. Add it back in just before baking. or better yet, grind the husk again and then cover the loaf with it mid way during baking.

• The kneading process is very important here too. essentially you are doing two things while kneading, stretching the gluten/protein and "adding air". the better this is done, the fluffier and light the bread is.

The other important thing about kneading is, if the dough is well kneaded, you can make fatter loaves of bread or thicker pizza.

• add ins. Unlike the unleavened dough, in this case, you can add fresh herbs and dried spices/herbs to the dough early in the process. But remember that salt and some spices inhibit the action of yeast. So experiment with the spices. Herbs could get wilted or totally burnt black if not used properly. That can ruin the bread. I will have to make another post about my observations and experiments with mixins/addins.

• Punching/second rise:

Let the dough rise once until it gets to double its size. then punch it back to normal size and let it rise again before baking. I usually put it in the loaf tin or for pizza roll it and place on the AirBake for the second rise.

• Baking:

Always grease the loaf tin or foil.

Don't over fill it with dough. leave enough place for it to expand.

Its too long already, i'll save stuff for another post another day. The big takeaway is, understand the fundamentals and experiment away. You can learn more by playing around than by following standard recipes. But always start with a known working recipe. And then tweak :)