Pita Bread Recipe

I just finished typing this up again, so I thought I'd share it here. Recipe as written:

Pita Bread (Arabic Bread)

1 pkg or cake yeast 1 tbsp sugar 6 c flour 2 tsp salt 2 c lukewarm water 1/3 c milk

Dissolve yeast and sugar in 1/2 cup warm water. Let stand 5 to 10 minutes. Place flour and salt in large bowl, making a depression in centre. Combine milk, remaining water and dissolved yeast. Pour into depression. Mix flour with liquid, making sure all batter on sides of bowl is mixed in. Knead until smooth and sides of bowl are clean (dip hands in water occasionally to give smooth elastic finish). Cover with towel and let rise in warm place until double in size, 2 to 4 hours. Take orange sized balls from edge of dough and form into smooth balls. Cover and let rise on cloth for 30 minutes. Roll into 1/4 inch thick circles. Cover and let rise on cloth for 30 minutes. Heat oven to 475F. Place dough directly on racks. When dough rises into mound, after 2 to 5 minutes, place under broiler for a few seconds until lightly browned; cool. Yields 7 to 9 loaves.

My notes: I use warmer than lukewarm water, but still a temperature you can comfortably put your hands in. I like to do the first rising in the oven with just the oven light on. (It provides enough heat to make a great rising temperature.) When baking, bake until most of the pitas blow up like balloons, but don’t wait for stubborn ones. Then switch to the broiler until it turns red. The pitas will be pretty pale (basically white), but oh-so-good!

Although it looks like a lot of work, most of the time is with the bread rising, which happens while you do other, more fun things, like knit. ;) Kids really enjoy watching the pitas balloon up, and then letting you know when the broiler is red. (I only use times when I’m sadly without a window in my oven.)

Fresh pitas from the oven with butter are heavenly. To keep the fresh taste, freeze once they’ve cooled, and thaw when you want them.

Enjoy!