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Pitta Bread

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Pitta Bread

You will never want to use shop-bought pitta bread ever again.
Course Bread
Cuisine Mediterranean
Keyword Bread
Diet Vegerarian
Prep Time 2 hours
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings 8 pittas

Equipment

  • Pizza Baking Stone

Ingredients

  • 400 ml water luke warm
  • 10 g active dried yeast
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 600 g strong white flour
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp olive oil plus extra to grease

Instructions

  • Put 100ml warm water in a jug and whisk in the yeast and half the sugar. Leave until the surface is covered in froth.
  • Meanwhile, combine the flours, remaining sugar and salt in your stand-mixers mixing bowl.
  • Using the dough hook set the mixer on a low speed and gradually add the oil; the yeasty water and the remaining 300 ml of water. knead in mixer for about 10 mins until smooth and elastic. All flour is different, so you may need to adjust the consistency with more flour or more water. You want the dough to be just shy of sticky.
  • Put into an oiled bowl, turn to coat in oil, then cover and refrigerate overnight, or leave somewhere warmish until doubled in size (about an hour to an hour and a half).
  • Divide the dough into approximately 100g balls; place on a floured baking tray; cover with a damp tea towel and allow to rest for 10 minutes
  • Roll out on a floured surface to rounds about 0.5cm thick, making sure they are evenly thick all over. place on a floured baking tray; cover with a damp tea towel and leave for 20 minutes.
  • Heat the oven to 250 C, preferably fan, with a baking stone or heavy baking tray in there.
  • Operating as quickly as possible, put as many pitta as will comfortably fit on the hot stone or baking tray while it’s still in the oven, flipping them over as you pick them up, so the side resting on the work surface is now on top.
    Cook until they balloon, then carefully remove and keep warm in a tea towel while you cook the rest (how long this takes will depend on how hot your oven gets).
    Make sure to keep the oven door closed as much as possible to conserve heat.