My Mum always made various homemade breads when I was growing up - I don't ever remember eating a pizza that wasn't homemade, and pita breads were also a pretty regular occurrence. In fact, one of my earliest (and haziest) cooking memories is making pita bread with Mum. We were eating pita breads (pronounced peeta breads in our house - long 'i', not short) long before they became the sort of thing you could buy at your average NZ supermarket. I'm not sure why - I must ask Mum. I suspect it's probably because one of Mum's best friends, Shirley, lived in Israel - I imagine she introduced our family to delicious bread pockets. My favourite way as a kid - and now - to eat them is with 'Shirley's Felafel', tabbouleh and minty yoghurt, so that does rather support the theory of their origins in our house. I must post the felafel recipe at some point...
You can imagine how distressed I was - having been brought up with delicious homemade pita breads - to taste my first store-bought one. UGH. Cardboardy, dry, bland, stale, crumbly - just wrong in every way. I'm sure if you've never had 'proper' pita breads, then you're quite happy trundling through life eating these sad imitations, but I'm afraid, like so many baked goods, the only way to get really good pita breads is to make them (in my very humble opinion anyway).
It's a pretty basic bread dough - the trick is using a super hot oven so that the flat pieces of dough puff up as if by magic and turn into delicious bready pockets.
I've always made plain white pita breads, but I find myself enjoying brown bread a lot more at the moment and I fancied trying a wholemeal version of my trusty usual recipe. I'm really pleased with the results! The breads are soft and nutty with that lovely sweetness wholemeal flour brings.
normal
If you fancy plain white pitas, just use all white flour instead and exclude the vitamin C (you can make these without vitamin C even if you make the brown version - the ascorbic acid is just useful when you bake with brown flour as it helps the yeast to do its thing in a heavier flour).
Proper Pita Breads
500g strong flour (for brown use 200g strong wholemeal flour + 300g strong white flour)
1 tsp fast action yeast
1/2 tsp Vitamin C (ascorbic acid - I can get this at some posher supermarkets)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
325ml warm water
2 tbsp oil
Mix the dry ingredients together. Add liquids and mix to a dough. Turn out onto oiled bench and knead for 10 secs. Leave for 10 mins then knead again for 10 secs. Repeat. Place dough in bowl in a warm spot for around 30-60 mins or until doubled.
Heat oven to the hottest you can - on mine this is 240degC (it tends to smoke a bit at this temp, but you need the heat). If you have one, place a pizza stone in oven to heat; if not, heat the heaviest baking/roasting tray you have.
Divide dough into about 9-10 pieces. On a well-floured bench, roll each piece into a ball and then roll out to a flat disc - around 17-20cm in diameter (I sooo didn't measure them. I'm eye-balling it. Roll them until they are the size and shape you think pita breads should be). They should be around 5mm thick. Place each bread 'disc' on a floured surface and leave for about 15 mins.
Once oven is hot, cook the breads two at a time (if you can fit 2, otherwise just one at a time) on the pre-heated baking tray. After a few mins in the hot oven, they should start to fill with steam and 'puff' up. I still get childishly excited watching this happen! I usually turn them oven once they've had a minute fully 'puffed', but you don't have to do this. They need around 2 mins once they are fully inflated, just to be sure they are cooked through. Carefully remove from oven and keep them stacked inside a clean tea-towel - this will ensure they stay nice and soft.
The pitas will slowly deflate after coming out of the oven, but the 'pocket' will still be there when you cut them open. Just like magic!
Enjoy! Really, once you've had proper pita breads, you'll struggle to go back to store-bought. I apologise if I have ruined you, but I think it's worth it!
You can imagine how distressed I was - having been brought up with delicious homemade pita breads - to taste my first store-bought one. UGH. Cardboardy, dry, bland, stale, crumbly - just wrong in every way. I'm sure if you've never had 'proper' pita breads, then you're quite happy trundling through life eating these sad imitations, but I'm afraid, like so many baked goods, the only way to get really good pita breads is to make them (in my very humble opinion anyway).
It's a pretty basic bread dough - the trick is using a super hot oven so that the flat pieces of dough puff up as if by magic and turn into delicious bready pockets.
I've always made plain white pita breads, but I find myself enjoying brown bread a lot more at the moment and I fancied trying a wholemeal version of my trusty usual recipe. I'm really pleased with the results! The breads are soft and nutty with that lovely sweetness wholemeal flour brings.
normal
If you fancy plain white pitas, just use all white flour instead and exclude the vitamin C (you can make these without vitamin C even if you make the brown version - the ascorbic acid is just useful when you bake with brown flour as it helps the yeast to do its thing in a heavier flour).
Proper Pita Breads
500g strong flour (for brown use 200g strong wholemeal flour + 300g strong white flour)
1 tsp fast action yeast
1/2 tsp Vitamin C (ascorbic acid - I can get this at some posher supermarkets)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
325ml warm water
2 tbsp oil
Mix the dry ingredients together. Add liquids and mix to a dough. Turn out onto oiled bench and knead for 10 secs. Leave for 10 mins then knead again for 10 secs. Repeat. Place dough in bowl in a warm spot for around 30-60 mins or until doubled.
Heat oven to the hottest you can - on mine this is 240degC (it tends to smoke a bit at this temp, but you need the heat). If you have one, place a pizza stone in oven to heat; if not, heat the heaviest baking/roasting tray you have.
Divide dough into about 9-10 pieces. On a well-floured bench, roll each piece into a ball and then roll out to a flat disc - around 17-20cm in diameter (I sooo didn't measure them. I'm eye-balling it. Roll them until they are the size and shape you think pita breads should be). They should be around 5mm thick. Place each bread 'disc' on a floured surface and leave for about 15 mins.
Once oven is hot, cook the breads two at a time (if you can fit 2, otherwise just one at a time) on the pre-heated baking tray. After a few mins in the hot oven, they should start to fill with steam and 'puff' up. I still get childishly excited watching this happen! I usually turn them oven once they've had a minute fully 'puffed', but you don't have to do this. They need around 2 mins once they are fully inflated, just to be sure they are cooked through. Carefully remove from oven and keep them stacked inside a clean tea-towel - this will ensure they stay nice and soft.
The pitas will slowly deflate after coming out of the oven, but the 'pocket' will still be there when you cut them open. Just like magic!
Enjoy! Really, once you've had proper pita breads, you'll struggle to go back to store-bought. I apologise if I have ruined you, but I think it's worth it!
Yum, yum, yum. Have made pitas once before and they were easy, perfect and delicious. Don't know why I don't do it more often. Would claim I'm going to make some tomorrow but I still haven't made that ciabatta yet...
ReplyDeleteHaha! You're probably just a wee bit busy?! Pita are a wee bit more hands-on time than ciabatta. But I reckon I can have them made and ready within a couple of hours because they don't need long. Worth making a big batch though - they freeze and reheat nicely! Yum yum yum indeed!
ReplyDeleteHa - this is your Mum here! Fancy writing about me. Yes I have always made my own bread. When you were just a baby I did a bread making course at the local Church. I then bought this book called "Bake Better Bread" recipes especially developed for New Zealand by Margaret Edwards and Margaret Hogg (1982) and it was my 'bible' for basic bread making in the early days. There is a section in the back that is for speciality breads and that is where I found the Pita bread. I am not sure why I started making them - maybe just because I could. I didn't have much contact with Shirley in those days though I do remember making them for her when she visited in 1987.
ReplyDeleteI remember my first efforts weren't flash as the book says you could use an electric fry pan to cook them but there was just never going to be enough heat. The intense heat is the key to cooking them. I now either heat up the roasting pan or a pizza stone and cook them on that.
I remember that bread-making 'bible'! It was a good course you did - those skills and ideas have stayed with you, me and my little brother right through! As has a love of freshly baked bread... x
ReplyDelete