Friday, March 20, 2009

Homemade Pita Bread

Still doing my baking for the bake sale tomorrow I decided to try my hand at homemade pita bread. This was one of those "just for fun" things that I wanted to make. I found a fairly simply recipe over at Tammy's Kitchen and thought, "What the heck, I'll give it a whirl." Here we go...

Homemade Pita Bread
1 c. luke warm water
1 Tblsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. sugar
3 c. flour
1-1/2 tsp. active dry yeast

In a large bowl, combine water, oil, salt and sugar. Stir in yeast to dissolve.


To the yeast mixture add flour 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead until a soft dough forms.

Transfer dough to a well greased bowl. Turn dough once to coat. Cover and allow dough to set in a warm place to rise, until almost double.


Punch dough down and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Using a pastry cutter, cut dough into 8 equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball. Using a rolling pin,roll each dough piece out into a 6-7 inch disk.

Place dough disks onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Cover with a towel & let rise until slightly puffy.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place 2 disks, side-by-side, onto a wire rack. Place rack in the middle of the oven. Bake for 4-5 minutes, until puffy (as shown in the second photo) and just slightly browned. DO NOT OVER BAKE! Check after 4 minutes then adjust as need be. OVER BAKING WILL CAUSE THE PITA TO NOT BE PLIABLE WHEN COOLED AND WILL RESULT IN A HARD TO USE PRODUCT.

Remove rack from oven and immediately wrap/layer pita breads in a damp towel, to soften. Continue baking the remaining breads, layering them between damp towels as soon as they're baked. Allow breads to completely cool. I can honestly say, I need to work more on my form. My Pita's aren't exactly round but hey, for a first time try, I think they turned out pretty ok.

Cut pita breads in half, or split the top edge, and use as desired.

Click HERE for printable recipe

4 comments:

Mrs. B, a very peculiar person said...

I think you did an awesome job! I am sure these pita breads will be way more yummy than store bought.

Mrs. B

Keeper of the Home said...

Thanks so much Mrs. B ~ I am hoping they taste good. The recipe was actually super easy. So depending on the taste, I might make them again but using the addition of herbs or such to it. Well see.

Farming On Faith said...

I have never tried pita bread~think I will give it a try. Any words of wisdom? :)

Keeper of the Home said...

Pita is good for using to make sandwiches, stuffing them with salad, using them to dip in soups, for scooping up hummus (a chickpea, tahini, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice & salt type middle eastern dip --- it is so yummy!)

Really pita is a universal flat bread. You will find many uses for it.

What was fun in the cooking of this is if you have a window on your oven, you can watch the pita puff up slowly. When this happens you know you have done it right..pita should be easy to open up (like a pocket) when it is sliced.

I'df love to hear how it turns out for oyu and what you think of it.