We love Greek food and with that I needed pita bread!
Took me several attempts, but here is my recipe for pita bread that is delicious and soft. Perfect for making gyros!
This is using soft white wheat berries, but you can also use spelt or kamut.
This recipe can easily be cut in half, doubled, or tripled.
Enjoy!
Pita Bread with 100% Freshly Milled Wheat
These tortillas are soft, filling, and delicious! Perfect to go with your gyros or whatever Greek food you choose!
Ingredients
- 3 cups warm water
- 2 TB yeast active or instant
- 1 1/2 tsp sugar
- 9 cups freshly milled flour Mill 6 cups of wheat berries - soft white wheat is recommended, but spelt or kamut could work as well
- 2 TB salt
- 1/3 cup olive oil
Instructions
- In large mixing bowl or mixer, combine warm water, yeast, sugar, and 1 1/2 flour. Stir to combine. Cover and proof for 15 minutes. If it is not bubbly after 15 minutes, proof 5 minutes longer. If still not bubbly, your yeast may be bad. Discard.
- Add salt, olive oil, and 5 - 5 1/2 cups of flour. Mix. Start adding flour 1/4 cup at a time. If using a mixer, add until dough just starts to pull away from bowl. If mixing by hand, add flour until flour just starts to come together. It will still be a bit sticky. Be careful not to add too much flour.
- Knead for about 5-6 minutes in mixer until dough is soft. May take longer kneading by hand.
- Place dough in greased bowl and let rise until double, about 45 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F
- Once dough has doubled, dust counter space and rolling pin. Take a piece of dough a little larger than golf ball size. Roll out into a very flat circle, dust lightly with flour if needed.
- Place tortillas on sheet pan (can use a preheated stone or regular baking sheet). Put in middle of oven for 2 minutes. Flip over. Cook for another 2 minutes.
- Remove pitas and place in towel lined bowl and cover to keep warm. Pitas will soften a bit more.
- Repeat until dough is gone and enjoy!
Notes
This recipe can easily be cut in half, doubled, or tripled!
The key to making sure your pitas aren't too thick is to make sure pitas are rolled out to about 1/8 - 1/4 inch thick. VERY thin. These will puff up and get thicker when baked.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Can these be frozen or would it be better to freeze the dough.
I do not know from experience. I suspect you could freeze the pitas cooked and then reheat when you need them. But I have never tried this personally!
Is it 2 tablespoons or 2 teaspoons of salt? Tablespoon made them really salty.
You can always back off the salt to your taste. 🙂
Do you think it would work to cook these on a dry skillet? Rather than the oven…
I have tried this before and they came out more like tortillas lol
How could I turn this into a sourdough recipe? I’m a newbie, please help 🙂
Ha, that is a whole different ballgame. That’s not a simple answer, but I am experimenting with sourdough recipes I hope to share soon!
These are now our favorite pitas! These are wholesome, tasty, and most importantly the closest thing to pitas that we have made. I started out making half batches, and after making three half batches already this week, I’m doing a full batch. Delicious and they puff up just like regular pitas. I have experimented with the thickness and it all depends on your preference. I like mine thick and chewy and some of my kids like them a little thinner, so I roll out both kinds.
I think I still need to experiment. Mine did not puff at all during cooking. And broke when tried to fold. Any suggestions for success?
This is the first time I ever tried to make any sort of bread with freshly milled flour. They turned out incredible. I used hard white wheat berries and I only needed the original 5 and 1/2 cups of flour + the 1 and 1/2 to proof. I will be making these regularly! Thank you so much for this recipe