Homemade Pita Bread

A few years ago my parents moved to Cambridge Bay NU.  Many Atlantic Canadians were living there as well and after awhile they all discovered that my mother made the best donairs since Greco and it was the closest thing to home for them.  On Saturday nights everyone would end up at my parents' place for donair night.  Unfortunately, one of the negatives of living so far north is that supplies are not shipped in regularly and oftentimes the pitas were dry and/or mouldy.  Not wanting to disappoint her guests, my mother decided to try making her own pita bread from scratch.  Donair night became a regular thing in the neighbourhood with homemade donair meat, sauce and pita.  She always told me it was easy and I've wanted to try it for years. 

Last night I tried making pita for the first time.  Unfortunately, the first recipe I tried did not work.  I did a little search on YouTube in hopes of finding some little Greek lady who could show me where I went wrong.  My pitas turned out more like hamburger buns.  After a little research I found that there was a piece of the recipe missing...the rolling part!  Take two was much more successful so I wanted to share it with you.  If you have a bread machine it's a breeze so don't be scared to try it!!!

I started by putting 1 1/3 cups of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil into my bread maker.  Then I added 2 cups of bread flour, 1 1/3 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 tbsp of sugar and 1 1/4 tsp of salt.  Next I made a little hole in the flour to pour the 2 1/2 tsp of yeast into.  I used the Dough/Pasta program on my machine and let it do all the hard work.

Once the cycle was completed I removed the dough from the pan in my bread machine and divided the dough into 10 equal parts.  I shaped each piece into a ball and place on a baking sheet.  Once I had all 10 parts shaped into balls I covered them with a damp dishtowel. 

I let them rise for about 20 minutes.  While I waited I preheated my oven to 500 degrees.  If you have a pizza stone put it into the oven.  The pizza stone needs to get really hot and it is best to let it get hot gradually so that you don't damage your pizza stone.  I decided to try my cast iron pan instead for fun but the next time I will use my pizza stones so that I can cook all the pitas at the same time.  Once the balls have risen, I gently rolled them out on a lightly floured surface. 

Last, but not least, I cooked each one in my cast iron pan for 3 minutes.  If I had cooked them on my pizza stone I could have cooked them all at once but because I used my cast iron pan I was only able to cook 1 or 2 at a time and it took a bit longer than I wanted.  As they cook they puff up but you don't want to overcook them so pay careful attention that you don't let them burn.

Once they were done, I let them cool a little and then had to keep myself from eating them all :)

I hope that you will try making these for yourself.  Serve with a little Tzatziki on the side or open them up and fill them with your favourite toppings for a healthy lunch option.