Saturday Blog Showcase - Homemade Pita

It's time for our 4th Saturday Blog Showcase.  Ann (Thibeault's Table) and I are hosting the event.  Please find Mr. Linky at the end of my post to sign up.  We look forward to everyone's participation and can't wait to see everyone's creations and introductions to different blogs!

This week I made pita from Kosher Camembert, a lovely blog with photos and essays of Zahavah's travels.  Her pita bread recipe was so easy to follow.  The one diversion I did take from the recipe was that I did separate the dough into 10 pieces and rolled each individually into 6-inch discs of dough to form the pita.  Zahavah rolled the dough and cut out 6-inch circles.  I will have to try that sometime to see if my results are any different.  I was very happy with the way my pita puffed!  They're wonderful. Another great recipe to add to my ever growing repertoire!  Thank you to Kosher Camembert!!

Pita

Adapted from Janna Gur’s The Book of New Israeli Food and Joan Nathan’s The Food of Israel Today.
These pitot are the closest I have found to the ones you get in Israel, fluffy and perfect with hummus, for mopping up leftover salad dressing, or filled with chocolate spread. The trick to forming the pockets is baking in a very hot oven on a baking stone (or, if my case, on hot cookie sheets) and refraining from opening the oven during baking.
Makes 8-10 pitot.

- 2 1/4 t yeast
- 1 1/2 C warm water
- 1 T sugar
- 4 C flour (I used all-purpose)
- 1-2 T olive oil
- 1 t salt

Make the dough. Dissolve yeast in 1 C of the warm water with sugar. Allow to bubble up (takes ~ 10 minutes). Add to flour, olive oil, and salt in bowl of mixer. Knead with dough hook for 10 minutes. Add additional water, tablespoon by tablespoon, until dough forms a slightly sticky ball.

First rising. Pour a little olive oil into a large bowl. Roll the ball of dough in the oil until coated. Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel and let dough rise until doubled (1.5 – 2 hours). I punch the dough down a few times during the rising.

Shape bread. Most recipes call for you to split the dough into 8-10 portions to roll out individually. But I prefer to easier method of rolling out all the dough and using a bowl to cut out 5-6 inch rounds. You can bake the scraps or re-roll them (this time I rolled the scraps into 3 individual pitot with not-so-round results).

Second rising and preheat oven. Allow the pitot to rise a second time for ~10 minutes. I do this on top of the oven as it preheats to 500º F. Heat cookie trays in the oven while preheating.

Bake. Pull a hot cookie tray out of the oven and quickly transfer half of the pitot onto it and return to the oven. Bake until all pitot have puffed to form pockets, 3-6 minutes. Repeat with remaining pitot.

Store. Pitot go stale pretty quickly, so the best way to store them is in in a bag in the freezer. You can reheat them for 20 seconds in the microwave after spritzing with a little water.

For Printable Recipe, Click Here

* * * * * * * * * *

To participate in Saturday Blog Showcase, remember:

   1. Make a recipe from another blog on any day of the week. Create a link to that blog in your post.

   2. Add the Saturday Blog Showcase logo to your post.

   3. On Friday night or Saturday, link your post to Mr. Linky.