Pita Bread - a new recipe

A few weeks ago I made pita bread. It was fluffy and soft and absolutely delicious.

So today, I set out to do it again--with visions of chicken bacon ranch stuffed pitas dancing in my head.

I figured I would try a new recipe. Just something different than before.
That's always a good idea. Right?

After the boys were off to school and Jenna was out the door and Carter was laid down for a nap, I plugged in my beloved Bosch mixer and began. I've been packing and sorting and just plain busy the past few days, and my brain was just not all there...

The recipe said:

In the bowl of a stand mixer*, combine the yeast, honey and ½ cup of the water.  Stir gently to blend.  Whisk ¼ cup of the bread flour and ¼ cup of the whole wheat flour into the yeast mixture until smooth.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside until doubled in bulk and bubbly, about 45 minutes.

What really happened was this:

In mixer, combine yeast, honey, all the water and flour and salt and oil...knead for 8-9 minutes or until you've gotten all the flour mixed in really well. Check clock. Place lid on mixer and head off to get stuff done.

Remove the plastic wrap and return the bowl to the mixer stand, fitted with the dough hook.  Add in the remaining ¾ cup of warm water, 1¼ cups bread flour, 1¼ cups whole wheat flour, olive oil and salt.  Knead on low speed until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.  Transfer the ball of dough to a lightly oiled bowl, turning once to coat, and let rise in a warm draft-free place, about 1 hour, until doubled in bulk.

Go pick up children from preschool. Fix lunch. Feed baby. Call mom. 

Place an oven rack in the middle position.  Place a baking stone in the oven (if using) and preheat to 500˚ F.

See that 2 hours have passed and dough has doubled in size. Wipe table and prepare for rolling pita dough out. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Curse under your breath that you forgot to clean out whatever spilled over and is not only smelling terrible, but burning your eyes.

Answer phone. Check recipe. Realize you had 2 different recipes pulled up on the computer and have now taken parts and pieces from both. Blow it off because you have been successful before and totally know what you're doing...or you think you do. 

Once the dough has risen, transfer to a lightly floured work surface, punch down the dough and divide into 8 equal pieces.

Hold baby again. He's not hungry. He's not interested in playing. But it's not naptime yet. 

Check the clock. Another 1 hour and 13 minutes have passed. Attempt to roll out dough.

Pick up whiny baby again. Scold child who is scaling the 13 bins of clothes you have sitting in your living room trying to sort through. Try to roll out 9 equal pieces--because hey, adding one more pita will lower the caloric intake of each, after all. 

Get 3 rolled out....time to lay baby down. 

  Form each piece into a ball.  Flatten one ball at a time into a disk, then stretch out into a 6½-7 inch circle.

Roll each ball into a thin circle. Don't bother guessing how big they are because you can barely see out of your watering, burning eyes.

  Transfer the rounds to a baking sheet or other work surface lightly sprinkled with cornmeal.  Once all the rounds have been shaped, loosely cover with clean kitchen towels.  Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes, until slightly puffy.

Deny constant requests from children to "make Easter eggs with your dough". Decide 500 degrees might be too high--can't remember from the last time I made them and too frazzled to go check the previous recipe. Lower it to 400 degrees. And totally move rack from the middle to the bottom. MAJOR fail.

Transfer 4 pitas, 1 at a time, onto the baking surface.  (Note: These can be baked on a baking stone or directly on the oven racks.  I use a pizza stone, but either method is fine.) Bake 2 minutes, until puffed and pale golden.  Gently flip the pitas over using tongs and bake 1 minute more. 

Transfer 4 pitas to pizza stone. Wish you had used cornmeal because the pita dough actually DOES look like the aforementioned dough eggs children were begging to make. Bake 2 minutes. Realize 400 was way too low. Wait and wait and wait for them to cook. Realize you've made way too many wrong turns and that your beautiful dough shows no signs of puffing up like a normal pita should.

 Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely. 

Transfer to the cookie sheet left out on your oven from the buns you toasted on it the night before.

Let cool. Shed a few tears. Stare in wonder at how the beautifully puffy pitas you made before could resemble so closely a deck of cards...

picture from here


 And then rejoice when your child jumps for joy that you just made individual pizza crusts. 
Guess we know what's on the menu tomorrow!