Homemade pita bread is tastier and cheaper than store-bought. Tips for making it include letting the dough rise, using whole-wheat flour, instant yeast, and olive oil. Rolling the dough thin and cooking at high temperature helps it puff up. Cooling with damp towels keeps it soft.
Making a light, puffy pita is an art. Homemade pita bread is much tastier and cheaper than buying it off the shelf. It’s easy to make delicious pocket pita breads by following a few simple tips. Some of the best tips for making pita bread include letting the dough rise until it has doubled in size and rolling it out to be very thin. Cooking bread at a very high temperature makes it puff up faster and cooling it with the help of damp towels helps it stay soft longer.
Many cooks use white flour in their recipes, but using whole-wheat flour gives pita bread a more intense flavor. Some wheat gluten should be added to whole wheat flour to make pita bread. Some prefer using white whole-wheat flour to other brands because the pitas come out better. Instant yeast is a better addition than active dry yeast because it is more potent. The latter must be activated with a little water. Using olive oil in the cooking process helps not only to soften the pita bread, but also to keep it fresh longer.
Adding a little honey or sugar to the dough also helps make pita bread look great. The sugar gives the yeast something to do and makes the pita brown a little quicker. One of the fastest ways to save time and effort is to knead the dough in a bread maker. When ready, it helps to roll the dough into a large ball and place in a well-oiled bowl. After the dough has been rolled a bit so that it gets a light coating of oil, it should be covered with plastic wrap and left to rise for about an hour and a half.
It’s also important to give the dough enough time to rise until it’s doubled in size. To make better use of time overall, some cooks prefer to make hummus while waiting for the dough to rise. When the dough has risen, it needs to be punched a bit to release trapped gases and divided into balls. At this stage, it is also essential to let the dough rest for about half an hour covered with a damp kitchen cloth – this makes it easy to work with. When using wholemeal flour, the standing period should be doubled.
To make pita bread, the rolled and flattened dough should be about an eighth of an inch (about three mm) thick. Making it as thin as possible helps the pita puff up much faster over high heat. Sometimes, pitas don’t puff up because the oven or cooking surface isn’t hot enough. Preheating the pan or baking stone and setting the oven to a very high temperature makes for a thin, flattened dough that puffs up beautifully. Some people prefer to use the bottom of a baking sheet as a heating surface and place it on the lowest rack of the oven so that the baking sheet is very close to the heat source.
One tip for getting seriously adorable pita pockets is to cool them by placing them on a cooling rack with damp towels. Some even prefer to cover them with damp towels for a while to make the pita bread stay fresh and soft for a longer time. Any excess pockets of pita can be refrigerated, sealed inside airtight containers.
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