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Whole-Wheat Pita Bread
March 25, 2007 |
The dog wags his tail, not for you, but for your bread.
- Portuguese Proverb
Click on the logo to see previous posts in the series.
Until we made them at home, we thought pitas were meant to look and taste like cardboard.
They’re simple to make, and so soft and flavourful, that it would be silly to buy them from the store.
Three things need to happen for a puffy pita.
1. Moist, pliable dough
2. Evenly rolled thin discs
3. The pita should not stick to the baking sheet while cooking
We had a puff rate of 70%. Even if your pita does not puff up and form a pocket, it will be silken and delicious.
RECIPE
Whole Wheat Pita Bread
(Makes 10)
Ingredients
2 cups whole wheat flour
1.25 cups whole wheat pastry flour
(or plain whole wheat flour. or, replace both flours with 3.25 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour)
3 tsps. active rise yeast
1.5 tsps. salt
1 tsp. sugar
2 tbsps. olive or vegetable oil
1 and 1/3 cups of warm water (1.25 cups if using all purpose flour)
cormeal or semolina to dust the baking sheet
Method
1. Knead all the ingredients together into a soft, pliable dough. It may be a tad sticky. No problem.
2. Put dough in an oiled bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap, and keep it in a warm place to double in size. This will take 1 to 1.5 hours. If you wish to make the pitas later, you can punch it down, cover it in oiled plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze it at this stage.
3. Punch the dough down to deflate it, divide it into ten equal parts, roll them into balls, and keep them covered with a floured tea towel on a baking sheet to rise again. The dough should not be dry. It should be pliable and a tad moist.
4. Preheat the oven to 500F with a rack in the middle.
5. After about 30 minutes, take two balls, roll them out fairly thin (3/16 of an inch - the thickeness of a quarter coin), about 6 inches in diameter, sprinkle cornmeal/semolina on the baking sheet, and place the rounds on it. Make sure the dough is moist.
6. Place it on the rack in the oven.
After about 2 minutes, they should start puffing.
After 4-5 minutes, you should have nice, puffy pitas. If you see a hint of brown on the top, take them out even if they don’t puff. If they don’t smell yeasty, they are done. They should not turn brown, else they may not be as soft as they should be.
7. Take them out of the baking sheet and cool them on a wire rack. Prepare all the pitas and stack them after they have cooled, Wrap them in foil.
We had ours with felafels, hummus and baba ghanouj. (recipes coming up soon)
Related posts
Flour, Flours, Grains, pita, vegan recipes, vegetarian recipes, Wheat, whole-wheat
SPEAK YOUR MIND
14 Comments so far
Yippppppeeeeeeee! My favorite, my favorite!
Bee, the mind reader :). I had pita for b’fast today!
“They’re simple to make, and so soft and flavourful, that it would be silly to buy them from the store”.
So true-i got the pita recipe from an Israeli friend of mine and ever since i’ve stopped buying them from store.
Whole wheat pitas with hummus is divine :). I have recently taken inspiration from Trader Joe’s varieties and tried several combos of hummus at home.
Post your recipes soon, am glued 
interesting you should make these….I am making Falafels tommorow. Post on that coming soon too, will wait to see your version.
WOW…those look wonderful ! I have been waiting for Spring time like forever now so I can make pita bread and the other yeast using breads ! We are still having a few severe weather alerts here with rains coming our way :-(
meeta, you make much more complicated things that make my head spin. this will be easy for you.
musical, post your hummus variations, pls.
trupti, our felafel post next week.
priya, use a towel soaked in warm water to wrap around your dough bowl. it should work.
- b.
I had to type the whole Enchilada again like name ,e mail, URL I mean!!
Pita bread looks great,perfectly puffed!!My kids love the pockets,they can stuff chicken and eat like burgers!:))
Well, I usually don’t have time to make them myself, but I think you just guilted me into it!
[…] it to a bowl. We like to sprinkle it with paprika. Serve it with veggie bites, chips, pitas, or on its own. baba ghanouj Beans Eggplant/Brinjal/Aubergine food hummus olive RECIPES spices […]
[…] Serve with tarator sauce, on their own, or in a pita sandwich. […]
Love your puff rate. So funny.
Kanchana
[…] I had no choice since Pita bread is not readily available) This recipe I have borrowed from the Masterchefs-Bee and Jai of Jugalbandi . Thank you Master bakers for this wonderful recipe with Wheat […]
Made these over the weekend…came out superb! Thanks for the great recipe!
I LOVE this recipe! I’ve tried a few others and this one is my fav. I’ve added my own twists: I use maple syrup instead of sugar and cut the salt in half. I usually use three cups of whole wheat flour; if I use stone ground organic whole wheat, I usually add a touch more water.
Today, I used two cups whole wheat and one cup kamut flour. They taste is really great!
The other time saving trick I’ve discovered is to use my new bread maker’s ‘dough’ setting to do all the prep work for me - then I start from step three. This frees me up to do other things and saves my energy too. Because I eat these pitas daily for lunch, I make them every other week, along with my home made w/w english muffins. Anything that saves some of my energy resources is most welcome. The bread maker makes the dough nice and uniform and very smooth. Thanks!
glad it worked out for you. we prefer maple syrup to sugar. and yes, we’ve reduced the salt in the recipe with great results. we’ve modified the recipe to reduce the salt. thanks for your feedback. the bread machine is a life saver for us. we knead all doughs in it, shape them and then bake them in the oven. - b.
[…] around on my kitchen counter. Wanting to use it again, I started looking for recipes and I ended up here. I’ve been a silent reader on Jugalbandits’ blog for over a year. Theirs in one of the […]
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You make this so easy. I love making fresh pitas. However, when we were living in Doha we had a wonderful bakery we often went to and their pitas were unbeatable.
I hope to see one of these upcoming recipes and the MM ;-)
See you in 50 posts time! HAHAHA!