Simple Pita Bread Recipe
Don't think about how complicated pita bread can be, from rolling, to rising, to puffing... just use this simple recipe and enjoy home cooked pita right at home!
Equipment
- Oven/baking sheet or cast-iron skillet
Ingredients
- 300 g all-purpose/white flour
- 35 g whole wheat flour
- 1 cup water
- 2 tsp dry active yeast
- 1 tsp white sugar for feeding yeast
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 20 g white flour (reserve flour, for rolling)
Instructions
- In mixing bowl, add together sugar, yeast, water and whole wheat flour. Whisk and let sit 15 minutes. You will see some action start to happen, bubbles forming in mixture.
- Once yeast mix starts to bubble (15 min), add in all purpose white flour and salt.
- Mix with spoon, by hand or in kitchen mixer with dough hook.
- Let sit 2 hrs or so, until dough has visibly risen.
- Choose oven method or cast-iron skillet method. Preheat as directed below.
- In the meantime, cut dough into equal portions (should make 8-10 small/medium sized pitas)
- Form approximately round balls and roll out into thin, half-centimeter/ ⅛ -¼ inch thick.
Oven methodn (easier, less maintenance, quicker)
- Preheat oven to 450F with pan or stone in oven during preheating.
- In oven, add as many pita dough as possible without overlap and cook 4-5 minutes per round, reheating pan between rounds. Remove when top becomes nicely browned, but not crispy. If you prefer, do an optional flip after 2-3 minutes (halfway) or so and remove after total 4-5 minutes.
Cast-iron skillet method (the more fun way)
- Preheat clean cast iron skillet on stovetop.
- Similarly, with skillet method, add as many as comfortably fit on skillet pan without overlap (mine fits 1-2). In this method heat comes only from the bottom, so flip after 2-3 minutes once puffy pocket starts to form and repeat on second side.
Finish:
- Repeat until all uncooked dough is used up. Store in a covered bowl or plate until ready to eat!
Notes
Oven vs Skillet:
Basically, when preheating cooking device (oven or skillet), what you are preparing to do is “shock” the dough, so it cooks quickly and cooks on top and bottom at about the same rate. If in the oven, this is easily done by having a pan that is equal temperature to the air around it and you can thereby avoid having to flip the pitas during time in the oven.
On the skillet, however, you would be required to flip halfway, once “pocket” starts to rise. This is a really fun thing to do but takes a little more attention. This also takes more time since you can only really do 1-2 pitas at a time, depending on the size of skillet. In the skillet, you really get that satisfying "puff" at it happens right before your eyes.