pita bread

Try to ignore my frazzled appearance. If you- for some bizarre reason, got the itch to bake pita bread on a 90 degree day, you'd look a little haggard and sweaty too. But when I chomp on my grilled portobello sandwiches tonight, it will be so worth it. Baking bread from scratch is always a satisfying activity, even when it's time consuming, messy, and HOT.



I came across this recipe awhile ago while flipping through Stephanie Congdon Barnes' photostream on flickr. I was inspired by her cute photo, and decided to make some pita bread on the spot! Of course, with almost every first-time baking endeavor, I failed pretty miserably. I don't know exactly what I did wrong, but the combination of a probably-not-quite-hot-enough-oven, not enough kneading, and general fumbling left me with tasty, but flat and dense pita that didn't have that balance between crispy and chewy that we all know and love.

This time, I put a lot of love into kneading, gave the dough ample time to rise (in my nice, warm kitchen), and preheated the oven thoroughly. I ended up with a nice looking batch of pita breads that I am looking forward to dipping in some garlicky hummus.

To make, you'll need:

1 package of yeast, or quick rising yeast
1/2 cup warm water
3 cups all purpose flour (out of necessity more than anything else- I was almost out of bread flour, I used 1 cup whole wheat flour to 2 cups regular flour. They came out great, and 1/3 healthier than they would have been, haw haw.)
1 1/4 teapsoon salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 cup lukewarm water


Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Let sit for 10-15 minutes until water is frothy.
Combine flour and salt in large bowl.
Make a small depression in the middle of the flour and pour yeast water in depression.
Slowly add 1 cup of warm water, and stir with wooden spoon or rubber spatula until elastic.
Place dough on floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes. When the dough is no longer stick and is smooth and elastic, it has been successfully kneaded.
Coat large bowl with vegetable oil and place dough in bowl. Turn dough upside down so all of the dough is coated.
Allow to sit in a warm place for about 3 hours, or until it has doubled in size.
Once doubled, roll out in a rope, and pinch off 10-12 small pieces. (I only did 8.) Place balls on floured surface. Let sit covered for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 500 deg F. and make sure rack is at the very bottom of oven. Be sure to preheat your baking sheet also*.

Roll out each ball of dough with a rolling pin into circles. Each should be about 5-6 inches across and 1/4 inch thick.
Bake each circle for 4 minutes until the bread puffs up. Turn over and bake for 2 minutes.
Remove each pita with a spatula from the baking sheet and add additional pitas for baking.
Take spatula and gently push down puff. Immediately place in storage bags.



*I am sure that fancy baking stores (or even not-so-fancy stores, I don't know) have stainless steel baking sheets that do not have a non-stick coating on them, but all of my baking sheets are coated. This is part of the reason my first batch of pita came out so crappy. What happens when you preheat a coated baking sheet on the BOTTOM RACK (that is, practically on top of the coils) at 500 degrees? Uh, copious amounts of foul-smelling smoke, that's what happens. Last time that happened to me, I freaked out, pulled the baking sheet out and tried not to panic (OMG! POISON FUMES! BLAH BLAH BLAH!) and then used one of my oven-safe stainless steel frying pans instead. Except, I don't think I preheated the pan long enough, so my breads never puffed up nice, and needless to say- the whole thing sucked. Plus, I burned myself really bad. BOOO. THIS TIME around, I used the stainless steel pan from the get-go, preheated it for at least 20 minutes, and my breads came out great. The only thing that sucks about this method is that I can only fit one pita in the pan at once, so it's VERY time consuming. What a pain in the butt! If you have a pizza stone (or, on Alton Brown's advice, an unglazed quarry stone which I have been meaning to buy for AGES) or an uncoated baking sheet, you're in the clear, you can bake a few at a time. But be mindful of what you're heating up in your oven- that non-stick coating can actually make you kind of sick if you heat it up too high. ALTON BROWN TOLD ME. And he's a FOOD SCIENTIST. ON TV.



Make sure you cover your breads up (mine are just wrapped in a cotton cloth, I'm going to eat them tonight) or bag them up if you're going to store them for a few days, or else they'll get stale really fast.

By the way, as usual- while reading the pita wiki page, I was sort of surprised (but now, it's not so surprising) to see that pita and pizza share a root. That's fun. SEE EVERYONE? LEARNING IS FUN.