Soft, fluffy, and everything you could ask for in a bread.
The recipe that I used is adapted from Delish.
Ingredients:
Per 8 pita:
- 1 cup warm water (I microwaved for ~20 seconds)
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast (slightly less than a standard 2.25 teaspoon package)
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1.5 teaspoons salt
Instructions:
- Yeast activation! In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix the warm water and the sugar, and then add the packet of yeast and mix again. Add 1/2 cup flour and mix one last time to combine. Cover with a cloth and let the yeast activate for about 10 minutes. If the mixture isn’t foamy at this point, your yeast may be dead, and I would suggest replacing it and re-doing this step.
- Uncover the yeast mixture and add the oil, salt, and 2 cups of flour. Mix in the bowl for a minute or two until all of the ingredients are incorporated.
- Lightly flour a clean surface and move the dough over there. Knead for a few minutes and make sure the dough is the right consistency - it should be a little sticky, but not unmanageably sticky. I have had to add up to an additional 1/2 cup of flour in this step to get the dough to become less liquid. The way that I test this is by shaping the dough into a ball and rolling it in circles - if the dough is sticking to the surface and separating as you roll, it’s too sticky. It might stick to the surface a little bit, but it shouldn’t separate. When your dough is ready to go, shape it into a ball.
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Grease a large clean mixing bowl and move the dough over here. Flip the dough once to make sure that the oil covers the whole dough, cover the mixing bowl with a cloth, and let it rise in a warm area for 1-1.5 hours. For the warm area, you can put it by a window if it’s sunny out. Alternatively, you can preheat the oven to 200 degrees, turn it off once it preheats, put the mixing bowl with the dough in there, and leave the oven door slightly open.
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After the dough has risen, deflate it and move it to your lightly floured surface.
- Reshape the dough into a ball and divide into 8 equally sized balls.
- Ready to roll and go! Sprinkle a little bit of flour on the top of one of the divided dough balls, and use a rolling pin to roll it out to an oval-rectangular shape. Lightly sprinkling with flour before rolling prevents the dough from sticking to the pin.
- You have two options for cooking: oven or stove top.
- For the oven: place a pizza stone or large cast iron skillet in your oven and preheat to 500°. When you’re ready to cook, place as many rolled out pita circles to your stone/skillet as you can fit without touching. Bake for 3-5 minutes until the pita has ballooned up and browned slightly.
- For the stovetop: set a cast iron skillet or a non-stick pan to medium-high heat and very lightly grease with butter. When the pan is hot, move the rolled out dough over there and let it cook for about 1 minute. Flip the pita and cook the other side for a minute or two. Flip one last time and cook the first side again for about a minute - the pita should balloon up now. When cooked, remove from heat and cook the next pita
- To serve the pita, the options are limitless but here are a few of my favorites: