I never would have bothered to make my own pita, but my sister was making hummus and babganoush, so pita seemed like the logical option for that dinner. I have never been a big fan of the supermarket pita; it is usually dry and cardboard-like. I also expected that some fancy technique would be needed to create the air pockets. I was wrong. Pita is both easy and fast to make, and the end result is sweeter and thicker than store bought pita, everyone’s comment was that it was similar to naan. I have tried this with white bread flour, and white whole wheat.
The first pita I made went to a tapas style Mediterranean dinner with my sister’s humus and babaganoush, cous cous salad, and a fresh greens salad. Tasty.
4 cups bread flour (or 3 cups white whole wheat and 1 cup bread)
1 tsp salt
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup olive oil (you can leave this out, but I really like olive oil in bread, if you leave it out you may need to add a little more water)
1 package (2 ¼ tsp) active dry yeast
1 ¼ cups warm water
Measure out the water making sure it is warm but not scalding (coming out of the tap it should be comfortable on the inside of your wrist). Sprinkle the yeast on top of the water and let sit. Put all other ingredients in a large mixing bowl. When yeast has dissolved (you can stir it into the water to help the process along) add the water. Mix with your hands until all flour is incorporated. At this point your dough is going to look uneven and scraggly. Place onto flat surface lightly dusted with flour and knead for five minutes. The dough should become smoother and form more of a ball. Place back in the bowl and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
After an hour, place your oven rack on the bottom of the oven with a baking sheet on the rack (the baking sheet also needs to heat), and preheat to 475 F. Divide the dough into seven roughly equal pieces. Use rolling pin roll each piece into a ¼ inch thick circle. Rotate the dough a quarter turn as you roll it out so that you get a circular shape.
Once all 7 pieces are rolled out, place half on the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 5 minutes. If you have an oven light, you can watch the air pockets slowly expand across the pita. You will know they are done because they will have puffed up. Some of mine had one large air pocket, others had several pockets. Remove from the oven (leave the baking sheet in the oven) and let cool on a wire rack (I used the rack from my oven) and bake the second batch. Once they have cooled, you may need to prick them with a knife to let the air out so they can deflate.
*My Bread Treatise goes into more detail about the process of bread making.
