Mix all the ingredients for the starter dough. Cover and leave to rise for 1½ to 2 hours. The mixture should be active, but it won't have risen much yet.
Add water and oil or butter to the starter dough. Mix well, then add the flour and salt. Mix until the dough comes together. You can use a kitchen machine, a wooden spoon or your hands. No need to knead it yet, the dough only needs to come together. Cover and leave to rise for 20 minutes.
Place the dough in the bowl of a kitchen machine and, using the kneading hook, knead on medium speed until fairly smooth, about 5 minutes. Cover and leave to rise until nearly doubled in size, 2–3 hours.
Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Cut into 10 equally sized pieces (approx. 95 g each). Roll each piece into a nice, round bun (see video below for the technique I use). Dust with a little flour and cover with plastic wrap or similar. Leave to rise until the dough pieces are fairly fluffy, around 1½ hours.
Heat a large (min. 28 cm/11 in diameter) thick bottomed frying pan over medium heat.
Using a rolling pin, roll a piece to the same size as your frying pan. Fry for about one minute on one side, and around 30 seconds on the other. The lavash should rise slightly and be speckled with dark (but not burned) spots all over. If your lavash burn or get crispy in this time, reduce the heat. If they look undercooked, increase the heat a little. It usually takes a piece ofr two to get the temperature right the first few times.
Wrap the lavash in dry kitchen towel(s). Repeat with the remaining dough pieces, making sure to brush away any flour from the pan between each lavash.
Eat or wrap the lavash in air tight bags and freeze them as soon as possible after they're cooled.
Video
Tips & notes
See video for how I shape the dough pieces into circular buns.I strongly advise always using weight measurements in baking. Volume measures are simply too inaccurate, often leading to disappointing results. Most kitchen scales, even cheap ones, usually have the option to display grams as well as ounces. I therefore don’t provide US volume measures for baking recipes.
Did you make this recipe?I'd love it if you'd be kind enough to leave a rating and a short comment.