The Fresh Loaf

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Pita breads

johannesenbergur's picture
johannesenbergur

Pita breads

So... time to try something new and the pictures of the pita breads on the right side of TFL has always appealed to me.

Being European, I had to use some other measurements and didn't bother getting the exactly like the recipe, so here's what I did, inspired by http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/pitabread.

Ingredients: (Made 8 pita breads á 50g)

 

  • 1 dl tepid water
  • 15g fresh yeast
  • ½ dl plain natural yogurt (I can't seem to stop using this in my creations)
  • 5g sea salt
  • 5g honey
  • 10g olive oil
  • 50g durum/semolina flour
  • 150g regular wheat baking flour + some for dusting and adding as nessecary.
  • Optional: Spices (I used a tiny bit of ground chilli, smoked paprika and ground cilantro)

 

Mix the yeast with the water, add the yogurt, oil, salt and honey, mix well with a fork, till it's a greyish, oilish mixture.
Add the flour, a little at a time (100g) and stir with the fork as long as it makes sense.

Knead for around 10 mins or so. Let it rise under a luke warm tea towel in a warm place for 30 mins.

Carefully fold and strech the dough, and make a sausage. Cut the dough-sausage into appropriate size lumps, I weighed them and made them 50g. Let the pieces rest and rise for 5 mins.

Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough and hopefully you'll succeed in making them circular as well. Just make it really thin, not paper thin, but 3-5mm thick.

By this time your oven should be really hot (max. heat) and if you have a baking stone (which helps), it should be hot as well. Place the pancake lookalike dough onto the stone and bake them for 3 mins in 200°C or to taste. The breads should blow up like balloons.

Cut them up sidewise and enjoy your pitas.

Filling suggestion:
Garlic and herb roasted shoulder of lamb, sweet corn, tomato, cucumber, salad leaves and hot salsa.

...I'm going to quit blogging now and eat some more...

Comments

wally's picture
wally

And nice looking pitas.  Were these done in on a wood-fired hearth?

Larry

johannesenbergur's picture
johannesenbergur

Thanks.

Oh no, not at all, just an old regular eletric oven.

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

I love a good pita bread...my favorite way is to bake them a little thick so they don't split..I guess that might be more of a greek style.  Thanks for sharing your formula.

Sylvia