Dreaming about making pitas at home for ages or just driven by a sudden impulse to glorify the day? These pita breads will please both!
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Dairy free, Sugar free recipe
Prep Time 2 hourshours30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 3 minutesminutes
Ingredients
Starter dough
¾cupFlour
½cupWater
1gFresh yeast
Pita dough
5cupsFlour
⅓ozFresh yeast
1teaspoonSalt
2tablespoonsOlive oil
1⅓cupsWater
Instructions
Starter dough
Mix water, flour and a bit of fresh yeast in an airtight container. Close the lid and put it in the fridge for 6 hours.
Pita dough
Measure flour, yeast, salt, olive oil and water. Add dough starter too if used.
Knead it together until a uniform sticky dough forms. We need to have a relatively moist somewhat sticky dough.
Lightly rub the dough with oil to prevent it from drying out.
Cover it then place it to a 68°F – 81°F /20°C – 27°C corner to rise for about 45 - 90 minutes. With a bit of luck and right temperature, it will double in size.
Take the dough out, cut it in two then gently form two logs out of them. Try not to press much air out of the dough. This step is only necessary to help us make similar pitas. If size is not important, this step can be skipped.
Cut up the dough into equal pieces. Our favorite size is about 2 oz / 60g.
Roll them gently into balls. In doubt how to roll the dough? Check out: How to roll bread roll No.1
On a heavily floured surface roll them out into 6"/ 14 cm diameter discs. Make sure they don't stick while rolling them out.
Place the rolled out discs onto a floured surface. Optionally sprinkle some water on top to prevent them to dry out, cover them with a kitchen towel then place them to a 68°F – 81°F /20°C – 27°C corner to rise for 30 minutes.
Not many of us is capable to shovel down 20 pitas in a day. Rub oil on the unused dough and in an airtight container, put them into the fridge for another day.
Heat up a non-stick or even better cast iron skillet medium to high. Too high temperature will scorch the pita creating holes where the water vapor can escape instead of puffing up our pitas. Place the pita upside down onto the hot skillet. In about 30 - 60 seconds bubbles should appear on the top of the dough.
We should be good to flip the pita over. When we try to lift the pita with a spatula and feel resistance, carefully try to separate the dough from the skillet without tearing. Consider lowering the heat or sprinkling flour on top of the dough before flipping it into the skillet.
With a bit of luck our dough should start puffing up in 1 - 2 minutes.
If it doesn't puff up, try to find the hole where the vapor escapes and pressing on it with the spatula. It won't be perfectly round but it will be just as tasty as the others.
Place the pitas under a kitchen towel until serving to prevent them from drying out.