When You Need A Pita…Bake It Yourself

Once you make these, you will never buy the ones in the bag again!

I am the self-proclaimed “Queen of Sandwiches. Growing up in Philadelphia, which is the home of the “hoagie” and the Philly cheesesteak, I ate sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. What made these sandwiches so tasty, was the incredible Italian bread that shops all over the Philadelphia area served. Had the bread not been so amazing, these classic sandwiches may have never become the icons they are today. I know I’ve said this before, but I will say it again…the key to a successful sandwich is good bread. It doesn’t matter how good the ingredients of the sandwich are without top quality bread.

These days, I’m loving pita sandwiches. I like to cut these pocket breads open and spread them with a little aioli, my favorite cheese, tomatoes, avocado, thinly sliced red onion and some sprouts. In the past I had used those pitas you buy at the market in a bag. Sadly they’re extremely dry and tasteless. I have pledged to my family never to buy them again, and why would I when these are so easy to make myself. When they come out of the oven, they’re  light and fluffy with a hint of that olive oil flavor.

If you take your sandwiches as seriously as I do, then I encourage you to give this recipe a try.

Pita Bread

Recipe from The Fresh Loaf

Special equipment: baking stone

3 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast or one packet of active, dry yeast

1 1/4 – 1 1/2 cups water, at room temperature

2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. Dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup water (100 degrees) by stirring and then stir in 1 teaspoon of sugar and let stand for 10 minutes until bubbly.

2. Then mix the yeast in with the flour, salt and sugar. Add the olive oil and 1 1/4 cups of water and stir together with a wooden spoon, until all ingredients form a ball. (If mixture is too dry, add more water, if too wet add more flour).

3. Using a bowl scraper, take the dough out of the bowl and place on a work surface dusted lightly with flour. You can knead by hand for 10 minutes, or in the bowl of an electric mixer on low speed for 10 minutes using a dough hook. If you do knead the dough in the electric mixer, you will still need to do more hand-kneading once you take it out of the mixer. The dough should be smooth and elastic, and spring back when you poke it with your finger.

4. When you’re done kneading the dough, take a large, clean bowl and lightly rub it with oil, or spray with cooking spray. Form a ball out of the dough and roll it around the bowl to lightly coat it on all sides with the oil.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside to rise for 90 minutes in a warm, draft-free spot. The dough should double in size. 

5. When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release the gases and divide it into 10 pieces. (I placed entire piece of dough on a kitchen scale, and divided the total weight by 10 so that all pieces weighed approximately the same.) Roll each piece into a ball and cover the balls with plastic wrap that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray, and let dough rest for 20 minutes.

6. While the dough is resting, preheat oven to 400 degrees F, with a baking stone in it . If you don’t have a baking stone, you can turn a cookie sheet upside down and place it on the middle rack of the oven while you are preheating it.

7. After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, dust your work surface lightly with flour and place one of the balls of dough there.  Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the ball of dough and use a rolling pin to stretch and flatten the dough. You should roll it out into a 1/8″ to 1/4″ thick round.

8. Open the oven and place 2 pitas on the hot baking surface. I let them bake for about 4 minutes until they were baked through and puffy. You can let them bake longer if you like them crispier. I removed them with tongs, and let them cool on a baking rack.

Store in a plastic bag for several days.