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pita bread with rolling pin

No Fail Pita Bread


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  • Author: Elizabeth Farr
  • Total Time: 2 hours 8 minutes
  • Yield: 8 large pita breads

Description

This soft fluffy homemade pita is 1000% better than its cardboard facsimile you can buy. It will disappear in your home at an alarming rate.


Ingredients

Scale

Sponge starter

  • 1/2 tsp instant yeast or active dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup warm water
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp honey

Final dough

  • All of the sponge starter
  • 1/2 cup warm water
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • extra flour for rolling


Instructions

  1. 2 hours to overnight ahead of time: mix all of the sponge ingredients together in a small bowl into a thick paste. Allow to sit at least 2 hours, though you’ll get the best results by covering the bowl and refrigerating overnight. (See note below if you’re short on time.).
  2. Uncover the risen sponge. It should be extremely active with many bubbles on the surface, and it will have a light sour smell to it if it’s been in the fridge overnight.
  3. Scrape the sponge into a larger bowl, then pour in the 1/2 cup of water and 2 tablespoons of oil. Form your hand into a claw and break up the sponge in the extra liquid.
  4. Add in the 1 and 3/4 cups of flour and the 1/2 tsp of salt. Stir to form a rough dough, then briefly knead the dough until it’s roughly smooth.
  5. Drizzle a little additional oil on the dough, then cover it to rise until double in bulk, about 1 hour.
  6. Folds: During the hour rising time, scoop under the dough with an oiled hand and and fold it back in on itself 3 or 4 times. Do this twice during the rising time.
  7. Pizza stone directions: If you’re using a pizza stone, heat up your oven now while the dough is rising to 450F with the stone inside your oven.
  8. Divide the risen dough into 8 pieces.
  9. Roll each piece into a ball: On a lightly floured surface, make your palm into a dome shape with a piece of dough resting in the center of the dome. Use the tension on the counter and a circular motion to form the dough into a smooth ball. Set the balls on a well-floured surface, then cover and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
  10. Rolling pita: Keep a small cup or bowl of flour handy. You need to be liberal with flour here to get pitas that will inflate reliably. (If they don’t, they’ll still be delicious, but the pita balloon is one of the fun things about making pita!). Flour your surface well, then use a small rolling pin to roll out one ball. Lift the dough periodically to make sure it’s not sticking to your counter. When the dough starts resisting, move on to another piece of dough. Work back and forth between 2 or 3 pieces of dough at a time, rolling until the dough starts resisting rolling any further. The goal is to get a pita that’s about 8″ across. Once you’ve achieved this, set the rolled pita on a floured surface and cover with a towel. Spray the top of the towel with water lightly to keep the dough from drying out (alternatively, cover with oiled plastic wrap). Keep rolling pitas until you’ve rolled them all. Let pitas rest for 15 minutes before baking (that’ll be about 5-10 minutes after you finish rolling the last pitas).
  11. Pizza stone baking: if you’re using a pizza stone, you should have already heated it up per step #7. If using a pizza stone, flour a pizza peel, then slide rested breads on to the hot stone to bake for 5 minutes. Flip over the pita about half way through baking.
  12. Hot sheet tray baking: if you don’t have a pizza stone, heat up a heavy sheet tray upside down in a 450 oven for about 10 minutes. Bake the breads from here as you would with a pizza stone.
  13. Cast iron pan or griddle baking: Heat up a cast iron pan or griddle on your stove over medium heat for 5 minutes. If it starts smoking, lower your heat slightly. Use your hands to transfer breads to the hot pan. Bake on the first side for about 1 minute until the top looks slightly dry. Flip over, and bake for another 1-2 minutes. You can keep flipping every 30 seconds or so in this time to encourage the pita to inflate. If you see black spots, lower your heat.
  14. Towel wrap: Stack and wrap finished pitas in a clean kitchen towel to keep them warm and from drying out. Brush off any excess flour. Eat immediately.

Notes

  • A pita that inflates requires 4 things: 1. A HOT surface to bake on (pizza stone, hot sheet tray, cast iron skillet or griddle), 2. Extra flour to keep it from sticking to your work surface, and 3. The dough can’t fold on itself during rolling or cooking. 4. (the most important): time to rest once you’ve rolled out the dough. This gives the yeast a little more time to work. I find 10-15 minutes to be about the perfect amount of time to let the yeast work without taking too much extra time.
  • Short on time? You can skip the sponge starter step by combining all of the sponge ingredients with the final dough if you are short on time. If you do this, increase the yeast to 2 tsp.
  • Flour substitute: I love using Italian 00 flour sometimes instead of the all-purpose. The dough tends to be stretchier and oh so wood fired pizza like. I get mine from Central Milling.
  • Taste for salt: I used to make this dough much saltier until I spent time in Perugia in the Umbria region of Italy where their flatbread of choice is saltless. There’s some interesting history in why they do that, but the basic idea is that if you’re eating your bread with savory, salty things, why add more salt? Since then, I tend to use less salt in my pita, though it tastes a little too flat to eat it like an Umbrian! If my salt amount tastes too flat to YOU, you can increase the total salt in the recipe to 1 tsp.
  • Flat pitas still taste good: Don’t get discouraged if your first few attempts at getting puffy pitas fail. Flat pitas are still delicious. Pita is a dough with its own DNA just like other unique doughs. Over time, your hands will get a feel for how to work it.
  • Prep Time: 5 minutes
  • Additional Time: 2 hours
  • Cook Time: 3 minutes
  • Category: Breads

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 1 pita
  • Calories: 162
  • Sugar: .81
  • Sodium: 147
  • Saturated Fat: .54
  • Carbohydrates: 27
  • Fiber: 1
  • Protein: 3