Pita Bread

If the traditional loaf seams a bit too daunting and time consuming, pita bread is a lot easier and faster to make. you could be eating pita bread 2 hours after you first thought of making it. It keeps in the fridge or in the freezer and if it does go stale, you an still make pita chips. In my opinion pita bread from the store really is NOT worth it compared to the home made version. 

I shared my pita bread with a friend, we had it with falafel, tabuli salad and tahini sauce. All recipes you can make from scratch. If you would like to see some videos on those recipes, go to dedemed

For the amounts the standard ratio applies. 100 units flour, 60 unites water, 2 unites salt and 1 unit yeast. These ratios are based upon weight and must be adjusted if you are using unites by volume. 

In a bowl, mix 3 cups of flour (I used half all purpose and half whole wheat) with 2 teaspoons of salt and make a well in the middle. 

In a cup, mix a tablespoon of yeast with a tablespoon of honey and about half a cup of warm water. The honey will activate the yeast and after about 10-15 minutes a big layer of foam will form on the water. 

Using a spoon start working in some water mixture into the flour mixture by pouring some in the well and making circular motions with the spoon on the edge of the well. The total amount of water needed is about 1 1/2 cups, I used a half cup already for activating the yeast, so one more cup needs to be added. Use warm water, cold water will slow the yeast down, and hot water will kill the yeast.

The people who read the traditional bread post will notice that I added the flour to  the water there and here we are adding the water to the flour. I just wanted to point out that these are just different ways of mixing the dough. There are a number of ways additional to these two. I think it just comes down to using the methods you are most comfortable with. 

Once the flour is totally worked in you will have a dough that's too sticky to shape into a ball. You can leave the dough in the mixing bowl, cover it with a towel and let it rise until doubled in size. The weather has been very warm the last couple of days, so 30 minutes of rising was enough for me. If you do this in the winter, try to find a warm spot in the house. Some people like to preheat the oven to 100F then turn of the heat and let the dough rise inside. 

When the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a well floured work surface and knead for about ten minutes. I was fortunate to have a friend over to share the pita bread with me and help out with the picture taking. I hope these pictures capture some of the steps in kneading, which is something that was very difficult to do for the traditional bread post as I was alone. There are a lot of verities of techniques in kneading, but the principle stays the same; the dough needs to be stretched, folded and turned to develop the gluten. 

You know you are done kneading when the dough becomes silky and you are able to stretch a piece of dough without braking it. With white flour, you can go even further, and stretch it so thin that light will come through.

If you worked with a batch of about 3 cups of flour, you should get about 8 pita breads out of it. Divide the dough in 8 almost equal pieces, deflate them with your finger tips and shape them in balls. The same rules apply here as with the regular bread, you want to fold the edges in, pinch to close the seams and stretch the surface to create some tension. Cover the balls in a cotton towel and let them proof (rise) for about 15 minutes. In the mean time you'll want to preheat the oven to 500F, preferably with a baking stone inside.

Roll the pitas out very thin and plop them on your baking stone without opening the oven door for too long. They only need a couple of minutes, they dont need to be flipped, and you know when they are done, when they have had the chance to balloon up for about 30 seconds.