Pita Bread

Pita bread is relatively new to our family repertoire but has become a firm favourite. It has many merits; they are easy to make, delicious and never fail to impress guests. They are great, for barbeques, picnics and soups. Possibly best for school lunches but there never seems to be any left over for these. I have, from time to time added seeds to the pita dough, such as poppy or caraway but this is the basic pita.

• 500 g of white bread flour
• 350 ml of tepid water
• 1 tea spoon of dried yeast
• 1 tea spoon of salt.

Mix the flour and salt in a bowl. Dissolve the yeast to a small amount of water and leave for a few minutes. Add the yeasty water and the rest of water to the flour and mix into a dough with your hands. I them put in the food mixer with a dough hook for about 10 minutes but you can knead it with your hands for about the same amount of time.

Leave the dough in a clean oiled bowl covered with cling film for an hour or two. Now you can knock the dough back and divide it into about 15 small round balls. Leave of a well floured surface and keep covered with a slightly damp tea towel. The oven has to be very hot about 220 degrees C and put a flat baking tray in the oven to get it really hot too. Roll out two breads to less than 0.5 cm thick. They should be about the size of a small plate. Put them onto the hot baking tray and cook for between 3 – 4 minutes. Once done put them on a large plate and keep them wrapped in a tea towel. The pitas will puff up like balls and watching them do this never fails to give me pleasure. While one batch is cooking roll out the next two and carry on until you have a beautiful heap of pita breads.