Pita bread recipe
Pita bread is quick to make, versatile and most of all delicious. We utilize our no-knead refrigerator dough, but any high-ish moisture dough should work fine. What gives pita it's beloved pocket is steam, it starts out with lots of small bubbles and if you did it right ends up one giant bubble.
There are a couple of different cooking methods, but the general idea is really high heat for a short amount of time. Too of heat and the outside won't set fast enough for the dough to trap its bubbles. Too high and well that's never happened to us. Our oven goes to 550ยบ and that means the pitas cook up in 2-3 minutes.
Pita sandwiches are a lunchtime favorite, but there are many more uses. What's better than pita and hummus? It also makes great toast the next day, just make sure you're fast and loose with the butter. Once you find out how easy making pita bread is, you won't have trouble finding uses for it.
Recipe
Equipment
- We usually use an over-turned cast iron pan that heats up along with the oven, but if you're making multiple pitas at once a pre-heated half sheet pan will work fine too.
Ingredients
- 2.5oz ball of dough, though more dough for larger a pita is certainly OK
- Flour for board and rolling pin
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to its highest setting and make sure the pan you're using for cooking is already in the oven
- Roll dough out until it's approximately 1/8" thick. It doesn't have to be exact but you want it pretty thin. Don't be afraid to use a fair amount of bench flour to prevent sticking--this is a lot of surface area.
- Carefully place the round onto the pan, if you're using an overturned cast iron skillet it's easy enough to slide right from the board onto the pan
- Keep watch and pull the pita when the bubble is fully formed and the outside is just starting to brown, about 3 minutes
- Serve warm