Ahhh ;) The leaning tower of pita!

In the course of my search of a perfect pita I have had many horrible accidents.... Many of them fell short (pun intended) of me yelling PITA.... Perhaps I might be the only person that yells PITA when it works ....but like I said I have had many horrible pita mistakes.... kinda like what is that lump of flat bread dough that I just baked? ( thank goodness one can never have to many pita (aka baked lump of flat bread dough) chips.  Soooo.... rest assured!  I do believe this is a no fail recipe. Part of the trick is how you roll the dough.

First the recipe:

• 3 cups flour (bread flour)
• 2 cups Wheat (or rye) 
• 2 Tablespoons yeast*
• 1/4 Oil 
• 2 cups warm water
• 3 Tablespoons Sugar or you can use Agave... 
• Salt to taste..... maybe 1/4 teaspoon ... if you like more salt you can add more. 

*I use bakers yeast

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Sift flour, add yeast, salt.  Mix together. Add oil and water (not boiling hot) but warm water... mix together... for at least 10 mins. (its the secret to a lot of bread doughs) ....kneading it

Not for all breads of of course. There is something I have learned though when making dough. It creates it's own temperature as you mix it. If you pay attention the dough will tell you when it's done.

Usually I find that my oven is not quite ready so I cover the dough till it is.... then you can just cut the slices off (or pinch them off to the desired size)  that you need. Usually about the size of a golf ball (but a little bigger). One nice thing about this recipe is you can choose what size pita you want.

When I roll them I have a little flour on the surface of my rolling board. I lightly tap the dough down on each side and then roll it out. Till it's about the size of a 5-6 round circle ( again this depends on how much dough you are using) think about a 1/4 inch thick. I use a thin cookie sheet that holds two of them .

This is how to seems to work to get your PITA! moment... after you first roll it.... flip it over into a little flour and then roll away from you pushing all sides of the circle out.(you can pick the dough up to avoid rolling backwards) .... if you keeping rolling back and forth it seems to ruin the elasticity of the dough and they won't puff. So every time you roll the sides out ....flip it over and roll from the other side... it really should only take you 3 rolls to a side... no more then 9 rolls total.

Takes 3 min's to cook them. Thats it. You don't have to flip them or anything. Just 3 mins in the oven. Now I understand all ovens are different so you will have to judge for yourself whats right.

Now it's always true that some won't puff but the more you get the hang of rolling the dough your success rate goes up. :) But in all reality you really don't need these to puff (it's just fun when they do) we use this as our go to bread all the time. it makes great sandwiches, pitas, chips, bratwurst buns, etc... and it freezes well. It reheats on the griddle to be soft and pliable just like it was fresh .... even if it seems a bit dried out. A little oil and a cast iron grill goes a long way.