In my last post I glossed over the fact that I made pita to go with our amazing falafel dinner. Lest you think that I am some kind of baking guru, let me assure you that pita bread is so so so easy to make. The only "technical" piece of equipment you need is a pizza stone. But I think you could probably use a baking sheet and make it work.
Last spring I posted about the wonders of the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes book. You can make a really good loaf of bread following their method. But you can make really incredible pita bread. What I mean to say is: You can make the best pita ever. And it really takes no time at all.
Here is their basic bread recipe with step by step instructions and photos. Once you have made a bucket, or pot, or big bowl of dough you can do all kinds of things with it. Obviously, you can shape a whole loaf of bread, or make bread sticks, or a pizza etc. But if you want to have fresh bread ASAP, make pita.
Here's what you do:
-Heat your oven with a pizza stone to 400. If you don't have a stone, put a heavy duty baking sheet in the oven and let it get hot.
-Scoop out a small handful of dough and roll it out to about 1/4 to 1/8 inch. You will need lots of flour.
-Use a pizza peel to slide the flattened dough on to the stone. Or, place the dough on parchment and use a pan or cookie sheet to slide it onto the hot baking surface.
-Turn on your oven light, call the kids and watch your flat dough bubble up and become pita. Takes about 7 minutes. Highly entertaining.
-BTW: If you prick the dough all over with a fork before putting in the oven, it wont puff and you will have lavash instead of pita. Equally delicious.
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