Homemade Pita Bread

These pita chips were part of a Sunday-venture of homemade everything. — Well, really just homemade pita bread and homemade hummus (recipe here). But it was a process. I wanna make everything once, and isn’t “from scratch” always better??

IT WAS. IT WAS BETTER.

Completely, soft and puffy, and perfect with the hummus. PERFECT. And they lasted a few days to satisfy the craving. Just heat in the microwave a few seconds to soften them up.

We discovered they’re also good drizzled with honey and freshly grated cinnamon. I’m drooling just thinking about it.

I got this recipe from good ol’ Google. One of the top results was this ‘Homemade Pita Bread’ from NYTimes.com. They do take some time, but it’s totally worth it (if you have it). 

Here’s what you need:

Here’s what you gotta do:

Mix 1 cup lukewarm-warm water in a large mixing bowl. Add sugar and yeast and stir until dissolved. Add the whole-wheat flour and 1/4 cup all-purpose flour and whisk. Place bowl in a warm (not hot) place, uncovered, around 15 minutes until mixture starts to look foamy.

Add salt, olive oil and nearly all of your all-purpose flour (reserve 1/2 cup). Stir until it gets clumpy, and dust with flour. Knead in bowl incorporating any stray bits of dough (about 1 minute).

Lightly flour a surface and dump dough onto surface. Knead for a few minutes until smooth.

Cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Then knead again for 2 minutes. [can refrigerate dough at this point up to overnight].

Clean your bowl and place dough back into it. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and cover with a towel. Place in a warm place and leave until doubled in size (about an hour).

Heat oven to 475 degrees. [I took all of the shelves in the oven out except for the bottom shelf.] On bottom shelf of oven, place a heavy-duty baking sheet, pizza stone, or ceramic baking tile. Punch down dough and divide into 8 equal pieces. Form each into a little ball, and then roll out with a rolling pin into about a 6-8-inch circle, dusting with flour.

Lift each, one at a time and place on hot baking sheet. After 2 minutes, flip until nice and puffy. Cook until only a few brown spots start to show, and remove from oven. Transfer warm pita to napkin lined plate and cover so they stay soft. Repeat with each ball of dough. I had two going at once and they were all done fairly quick. This was the fun part!

I suggest taking them out as soon as they have the brown spots in order to keep them soft. The longer the more “chippy” they become.

So was eating them. I recommend brushing with olive oil and sprinkling with sea salt. Or do the honey/cinnamon thing.

Here’s the hummus recipe these pitas were made for!