Okay, what am I doing wrong now?
So I baked bread for years, completely unaware of the "windowpane" test or that the purpose of kneading was to develop the gluten, etc. Mostly, things came out fine, or at least I was blissfully unaware that they could have been better. Now suddenly I've been reading up on these things and trying to do everything correctly.
Anyway, tonight I got out my pita bread recipe and started mixing up the dough by hand. Since I was using 2 and 3/4 cups of wheat flour (plus 2 3/4 cups of King Arthur unbleached bread flour), I even added two teaspoons of vital wheat gluten. I figured, why not? And then I tried to knead it very gently, following the instructions I'd seen on the King Arthur Flour videos. I kneaded it for about 15 minutes. I tried the windowpane test. It mostly stretched thinly, but it holes appeared if I stretched it out more than two inches. But since it was half wheat flour, I decided it would be safer to stop kneading it and just let it go through the first rise.
Now i have this sticky mess.
Various factors I think could have affected the dough:
1) It is extremely humid in the city and in my apartment right now. And hot. And my apartment building turned off the A/C, so it's going to stay that way.
2) Maybe I added too much water to begin with? But if so, why did the dough refuse to permanently absorb the flour? I added 1/4 cup more in the course of kneading the dough.
3) I weighed out the flour based on what I thought 2 and 3/4 cups should be. However, the recipe I was using called for measurements by cup. Perhaps the authors of the book really just meant 2 3/4 cup and were making allowances for those who don't measure by weight.
4) Maybe I just gave up too soon on the kneading stage; or
5) Maybe I kneaded too much?
Not sure what I can do at this point. Probably, I can just make the pita tomorrow, and it'll be fine. Not great, but passable. Definitely good enough to scoop up hummus.
What percentage water did you use by weight (total water weight divided by total flour weight x 100)?
I highly doubt you kneaded too much if you were doing it by hand.
The recipe called for 2 3/4 cups of bread flour and 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons of whole wheat flour. Ignore whatever I wrote before. So I put in 15.6 oz of flour total . . . I think. Actually I can't remember. Perhaps that is the problem.
The water was 1 1/4 cups or 10 oz. (I didn't do that one by weight).
And then in kneading, I added another ounce of flour. I guess now the hydration does sound pretty high for pita dough.
Let the dough decide when you have added enough flour. If the dough is too sticky, add a light dusting of flour. If you can manage this through the shaping, that is the right amount. Don't give up. I doubt that you can knead too much. In the shaping stage you want to develop tension in the skin, it is unneccessary and not advised to work the dough greatly at this stage.
Ford
I would say that it could use more development. I don't know what "gentle" kneading means, but I don't see a reason to be gentle if you are kneading by hand. I calculate a 64% hydration which should come together nicely eventually. One suggestion would be to add an autolyse stage if you have the time. Just mix the flour and water only into a shaggy mess and let it sit 20 minutes to an hour. Then mix in the rest of the ingredients and knead as normal. You will be surprised how much gluten development happens on its own when resting like that. This should shorten the kneading time. If you stop kneading and it still doesn't seem quite right (i.e. it is a sticky mess), then do one or two stretch and folds during the bulk fermentation. There is no reason to kill yourself trying to knead to a window pane (or "pain" as I like to call it) when these other techniques will get you there with less effort.
edit: originally said more kneading... changed to read "more development"