Update 9/30/2011 - I made these today and they wouldn't balloon. Sadly I made a double batch. I tried a few things and finally decided that somehow my dough was too sticky. I had thought it looked moist but figured it wouldn't matter, but would make a nice soft bread. Wrong. However, once I started rolling them on a heavily floured surface they seemed to poof better. Only had 2 duds in the last 1/2 of the batch. The first half of the batch are all now just flatbread. So, note for next time - this should be a nice, not too sticky/moist bread dough.
I made up my own pita recipe today. I had made some from online before, and I had made 2 different pitas from my King Arthur book before, but I had only minimal success with getting them to balloon, and they were all mixes of wheat and white flour and I wanted 100% wheat. I read in my Peter Reinhart book how to cook them and get them to balloon, but I wanted pitas today, and all of his recipes require a biga and soaker that rest overnight. So, I combined lots of what I read and made up my own recipe. I added a bit extra yeast to get them to rise a bit quicker..... Here is what I did
I made up my own pita recipe today. I had made some from online before, and I had made 2 different pitas from my King Arthur book before, but I had only minimal success with getting them to balloon, and they were all mixes of wheat and white flour and I wanted 100% wheat. I read in my Peter Reinhart book how to cook them and get them to balloon, but I wanted pitas today, and all of his recipes require a biga and soaker that rest overnight. So, I combined lots of what I read and made up my own recipe. I added a bit extra yeast to get them to rise a bit quicker..... Here is what I did
Ingredients
- 3 cups wheat flour (14.5 ounces for me)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons yeast
- 1 1/4 cups warm water
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
1. Combine all ingredients in mixer. Mix with dough hook until smooth. (about 6 minutes) Let rest 5 min while preparing an bowl sprayed with cooking spray. Mix 1 more minute. Turn into bowl. Cover and let rise until 1 1/2 to 2 times original size. (about 45 min.)
2. Put pizza stone on upper rack about 1/3 way down the oven. Heat oven as hot as it will go. (550 for my oven) Turn dough onto floured surface. Divide into 8 balls (about 90 grams each) Cover and let rise again until 1 1/2 times in volume. (about 30 minutes)
3. Roll dough into 3-4 inch disk. Let rest while getting pizza peel ready. Starting with the 1st disk you rolled last time, roll each disk out to about 5-6 inches. Transfer to peel and slide on to pizza stone in oven (preferably 1 at a time but no more than 2.) Bake about 2 minutes - set timer for 1 minute. Watch them, they will start to bubble, then puff into a complete balloon. When they are a full balloon, wait 20 seconds and take them out. Repeat for the rest of the pitas.
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