Wheat Pita Bread - from Mom!

After I made the other pita recipe, my mom gave me this wheat pita recipe that was SO MUCH BETTER.  Just as much work, but not as sticky and is somewhat healthier since almost half of the flour is whole wheat.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups warm water
1 tsp dry yeast
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
approx 3 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:

Mix the warm water and yeast, let it dissolve.
Add the whole wheat flour and stir 100 times, in the same direction.  The mixture should still be liquid-y when you get to 100.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and set aside for at least 30 minutes.  It is safe to leave it for up to 5 hours at this point if you need to run errands or something.
When you come back to it, it will be bubbling (and should look like it might be alive).

Add the salt and olive oil, and gently stir in the same direction.
Add the 3 cups of all-purpose flour, all at once.  Then stir by folding (an under/over movement).  The mixture will then become a dough.

Flour a surface and knead for 10-15 minutes.  Add flour if needed to keep it smooth.
When you are finished, the dough should be smooth, with a nice sheen on the surface.

Coat the ball of dough with some olive oil, and place it in a bowl.  Cover with plastic and let it rise until it doubles (2-3 hours)
If you poke holes in it and they don't bounce back, it's done.

Knead it gently for a couple of minutes.  At this point you can refrigerate it overnight and make the bread the next day if you choose.  Mom said it does rise a little if you do this, though, so knead it a couple of minutes when you take it out of the fridge.


Preheat your oven with baking sheet or stone, on bottom of oven rack.   Mom said to preheat to 450 deg. F., but I think I set mine to 475.  Let it preheat for a while, since you want it to get very hot (Mom recommends 30 minutes)

Divide the dough evenly into balls - 16 large or 40 small (4 in. diameter for finished pitas)
I ended up with 32 medium-sized pitas.

Roll each one to make balls, flatten and roll out.

Let them rest 10 minutes, and roll them out again.

Rolling with my handy dandy 3-buck-chuck rolling pin.

Ready to go into the oven!

I then place them, four at a time, on my pizza peel.  The pizza peel was a good way to transfer the dough onto the hot baking stone in the oven.  A spatula would have been my next choice.

Put each grouping in the oven and cook 3-5 minutes.  Once you notice them puff up (I had to peek every so often), wait another 20-30 seconds, then pull them out (I used a metal spatula to pull them out).  Stack them and press down gently with a spatula when they come out of the oven.

Wrap them in a towel to keep them warm for serving, or store in airtight containers (large ziplock bags work great).

This recipe is from Julia Child's show "Baking with Julia," Apr. 14th of 2007.