............................................Welcome To Grandma Bonnie's Closet.............................................

Friday, February 24, 2012

Pita Bread Recipe with Baking Tips

I do enjoy making bread for my family. I have a bread machine but I most often make bread by hand. This is good relaxing therapy. The dough I use for this is just a basic white bread recipe. If you would like to make this wheat bread you can substitute whole wheat flour for half of the white flour. I have also heard it works well with totally replacing the white flour with wheat. Although I have only tried the half and half method.
Bread Dough Recipe
Ingredients:
1&1/4 cups water
3 tablespoons olive oil (substitute vegetable oil)
1 tablespoons sugar(substitute 2tablespoons honey)
1 teaspoon salt
3&1/2 cups flour
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast

First add 1/4 cup warm water(105° F–115° F) and sugar to a small bowl. Add yeast to the warm sugar water stir gently.  Allow the yeast activate.(bubbles form and mixture becomes frothy). Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Add water, olive oil and yeast mixture. Mix with hands until the dough forms a ball.

If the dough seems sticky add flour very slowly until a soft dough is formed and is easy to knead. Knead the dough gently for a few minutes. Place the dough in a bowl that has been oiled with a little olive oil. Roll the dough over a couple time to allow the oil to cover all sides of the dough. This will seal the air out so the dough will not form a dry crust.

Set the bowl in a warm place and cover with a towel.
Tip for a drafty kitchen: Fill a pot 1/4 of the way with warm water(110° F.)Set the bowl of dough over the pot of water do not set the bowl in the water. Cover with a towel.  
Allow the dough to rise about double in size. (45 min. to 11/2 hrs.)

Remove the dough and knead on a lightly floured surface. Preheat oven to 400° F. Divide the dough into 8 pieces. Roll out each piece into a flat circle.

Allow the pieces to sitcovered with a towel and rise about 10 to 15 min. Place the pita circles on a cookie sheet or pizza stone in the oven. The dough should puff up slowly.


Baking time about 7 to 10 min. Until slightly brown.

Tip to keep pita bread soft. When the bread is taken from the oven it will harden as it cools. To prevent this place the pitas right out of the oven on a sheet of waxed paper and cover with a kitchen towel. Add more pieces under the towel untill all pieces are baked. Allow the bread to cool and seal into a ziplock bag.


Tip to serve warm pita bread. When pita bread is rewarmed in the oven on a tray or in a microwave it will cool down very quickly. I rewarm my pita in a hot oven for a few seconds then place it back in a ziplock bag and place on a serving plate. A guest can remove a warm piece and reseal the bag the pitas will stay warm and soft.



25 comments:

  1. I MUST try this! My family eats pita bread as though it were magic -- we like to make pizza out of it :D

    Jess

    ReplyDelete
  2. I usually stay away from any kind of bread recipe, but you make it look so easy! I'll definitely add this to this weeks menu and hope I do it right :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love pita bread. Great recipe and thank you for the tips.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This looks yummy! I'll have to try it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Warm pita bread sound lip smacking good!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This looks yummy! :) The ziplock bag is a great idea!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh yum!! I used to make my own pita bread and it was sooooooo goooood. I miss all that stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Man am I impressed with you - I never knew you could make pita bread - lol. sandie

    ReplyDelete
  9. That is quite an achievement - they really turned out nice Thanks for this recipe
    adriana(dot)grillo(at)live(dot)ca

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yum! And how cute the help is too! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love peta bread!!! Thanks so much for the recipe!!!
    -Amber

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yum, yum! I will be right over ;D

    ReplyDelete
  13. I am going to try this with the grandchildren

    ReplyDelete
  14. This recipe is so great! I love pita bread and have never seen a recipe for it. Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I love Pita bread! I'm going to try this recipe, thanks so much for posting it :-)

    ReplyDelete
  16. I definitely need to try this recipe with my kids. It looks great! (Corey Olomon)(olomon@hotmail.com)

    ReplyDelete
  17. thank you for this. i never knew how to make pita bread..it looks fabulous!!
    i am your newest follower..pls follow back if you can.

    ReplyDelete
  18. What a wonderful recipe! I love trying new things on my own...nursing school is a bit of a time sink so I haven't been able to do my very own baking as much as I'd like, but I'll try these for sure!!!
    matthews.jennifer@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  19. you make it look so easy and it looks good too P.S. give the helper a gold star

    ReplyDelete
  20. wow, you make this sound so easy. Any time I have tried to make bread or dough, it was a horrible mess. I just can't get the flour right. I will keep trying though -- thank goodness flour is cheap. lol

    myfreebi3s at yahoo dot com

    ReplyDelete
  21. Yummy, thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I'm going to have to try this with Abby. I've got her longer hours these days due to a change in her moms schedule and I'm running myself ragged trying to find things to keep her busy.

    ReplyDelete
  22. This looks so good! I am def. going to try this out! Thanks for all the great info. on your blog!
    Jessica Stotler Hetrick

    ReplyDelete