Moroccan-Style Layered Flatbreads

Flatbread Dough

Pantry swaps

Method

1. Put the flour, salt, and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Crack in the egg and add a squirt of agave syrup. Add the water, then mix with a spoon until the mixture comes together into a dough.
2. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead for about 5 minutes – swirl it in a circular motion with one hand and push it back into place with the other. The dough should turn soft, pliable, and slightly springy. Round it into a clean dough ball.
3. Rub extra-virgin olive oil all over the dough ball and shape it into a long oblong. Twist off balls one by one – this batch makes 4 – and form each into a clean circle in your hands. Line a baking tray with olive oil, place the balls in it, and keep oiling your hands throughout. Cover with cling film, a lid, or a wet towel and rest at room temperature for 15 minutes.
4. Oil the surface again. Take one ball, placing the cover back on the tray each time, and press it flat with your fingertips. Keep dipping your fingers back into the olive oil as you work – the oil is what lets you stretch the dough and builds the layers. Push the edges out in a circular motion until the wrap is as thin and transparent as it can get without breaking; a few small holes are fine.
5. Fold the wrap: fold the top down about 2/3 of the way, lift the bottom up to meet it, fold one side over 2/3 of the way across, and bring the other side over to meet the edge. You are left with a square pocket. At this point you can scatter a filling across the dough before folding – cinnamon for a sweet version, za’atar, shredded meat, cheese, butter, spices, crushed nuts, or coconut.
6. Transfer the folded pockets back into the tray and keep them covered. Rest for a further 15 minutes.
7. Re-oil the surface and flatten each pocket out again to its final size. Do not oil the pan – the dough is fatty enough. Cook on medium heat, pressing down as each one cooks, and keep flipping so it does not burn. If it colors too fast, reduce the heat. Cook until perfectly golden brown.
8. Stack the cooked flatbreads under a damp towel to keep them soft. Extra dough balls freeze well: wrap them in cling film, freeze, and cook later straight from a thaw.

Notes

Servings: 4 (per serving). Per serving: 573 kcal, 14 g protein, 93 g carbs, 15 g fat, 3.2 g fiber. Olive oil and sweetener amounts are not measured in the video and are estimated (about 50 g total oil across the dough and oiling, 10 g agave); the rest are exact from the narration. Fiber comes from the flour.

The creator doubled the batch in the video – the recipe above is the single batch (4 flatbreads). The technique is what makes these special: a lean dough stretched paper-thin, oiled at every step, then folded into a square pocket so the pan-fry builds those filo-style layers – light, flaky, and moist at the same time. The creator says this is the flatbread he settled on after trying “pretty much every flatbread recipe out there.”

Source: Adam Hollingsworth, “The Best Flatbread Recipe Ever” (YouTube, 6:20).