Pita bread is popular in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean countries.
Externally, this bread looks like a flatbread, but inside it is hollow.
Pita can be made from unleavened or yeast dough. Can be baked in the oven or in a frying pan.
When the pita is baked for a short time at a high temperature, the dough puffs up and forms a pocket that can be filled with any filling.
This bread is a great option for breakfast or a snack in nature.
A wide variety of fillings are suitable for pita: meat, cheese, vegetables, omelet, salad... Whatever your heart desires.
Remove the butter from the refrigerator in advance.
Pour flour into a bowl and add salt. Dissolve yeast in water and pour into flour.
Add soft butter.
Knead the dough. Set aside to rise in a warm place.
Divide the dough into 6 equal parts. Roll each part into a flat cake.
Place the tortillas on a baking sheet with a mat or paper.
Cover with a towel and leave for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Bake the pita for 6-7 minutes.
Don't wait for the pita bread to brown too much.
Place the hot pita on a towel and cover. Once the pita has cooled a little, you can taste it.
Bon appetit.
A simple and very tasty food - Arabic pita bread, you can serve it for lunch or for a snack, adding your favorite filling to the pita.
This is a very simple homemade baking, which uses only the most affordable products. The peculiarity of pita is its round flat shape, as well as the emptiness in the middle. Thanks to the water vapor that forms inside the cake during baking, the dough swells like a ball and separates. It turns out to be a kind of pocket in which you can easily place absolutely any filling of your choice.
Pitas are usually prepared from wallpaper flour, but I prefer to use premium wheat flour. Of course, the finished flatbreads will not be golden brown, but this does not at all affect the taste and aroma of this unleavened bread. In a city apartment, the preparations are baked in a well-heated oven at high temperature directly on a dry baking sheet. I hope that the recipe will be useful to you and that you will often spoil your homemade Arabic pitas.
- wheat flour - 500 gr
- water - 300 ml
- vegetable oil - 50 ml
- instant yeast - 1.5 tsp.
- salt - 1 tsp.
To prepare these unleavened Arabic flatbreads, we will take such simple and affordable ingredients as wheat flour (premium or first grade), water, refined vegetable oil (I use sunflower oil), salt and yeast. I used instant yeast, which does not require pre-activation in liquid, but is added directly to the flour. If you just have dry yeast (also 1.5 teaspoons) or compressed/fresh yeast (15 grams), you need to dissolve it in warm water and let it stand for 10-15 minutes.
Add 1.5 teaspoons of instant yeast and 1 teaspoon of salt (preferably fine). If the salt is coarse, it is advisable to dissolve it in warm water in advance. Mix the flour and yeast with your hand or a spoon until the mixture becomes relatively homogeneous.
We knead a fairly soft dough that holds its shape perfectly and practically does not stick to your hands. You need to knead long enough (with your hands - at least 10 minutes) so that the dough becomes completely homogeneous and smooth. Cover the bowl with cling film or cover with a towel and leave warm for 2 hours. After 1 hour of fermentation, do a light knead to release the gas, round the dough and return to heat for another 1 hour.
After 2 hours of fermentation, the yeast dough for flatbreads will work very well and will increase in volume by at least 3-3.5 times.
Divide it into small pieces of the same size, rounding each one into a ball shape. Leave on a work surface lightly dusted with flour, cover with film or a towel and let the workpieces rest at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
Then roll out each piece of dough into a flat cake (no more than 5 millimeters thick), remembering to sprinkle the dough with flour (lightly) so that it does not stick to the rolling pin. In this way we roll out all the blanks. Let them rest for 10 minutes on the table.
In advance (30 minutes before baking), turn on the oven to warm up to 220 degrees along with the baking sheet - it should be red-hot. When the oven is properly heated, take out a hot baking sheet (you don’t have to take it out, just pull it out) and quickly place several pieces on it.
Immediately close the oven door and cook the pitas on medium level for about 7-8 minutes. During this time they will puff up like balls and be completely baked. When the first batch is ready, remove the cakes from the baking sheet and immediately bake the rest.
The finished pitas, if you did everything correctly, will inflate well, but will not tear - all the air will remain inside.
Serve the pitas warm, although once cooled they will remain fresh for several days when stored in an airtight container or tightly sealed bag. These cakes, by the way, can be frozen.
Arabic pita breads are soft, tender, aromatic and very tasty. They are hollow inside and are great for filling with a variety of fillings. Try it, you will love this simple but delicious homemade bread.
Recipe 2: Yeast Pita Flatbread (step by step)
Under normal household conditions, it is difficult to repeat the traditional technological process, but nevertheless, our housewives were able to adapt the recipe for making this amazing bread, and now pita bread can appear on every table. You will need very high temperature and knowledge of some secrets. During short baking, the pita flatbread puffs up greatly and forms a pocket inside, which can be filled with any filling after cooking. Pita is perfect for first and second courses; it is convenient to take with you on the road or to work. Any recipe for pita bread at home is simple, because you use products that are in any kitchen.
- water 200 ml
- salt 1 tsp
- sugar 1 tsp
- dry yeast 2 tsp.
- olive oil 2 tbsp.
- wheat flour 350 g.
Before making pita bread at home, prepare the basic ingredients. Pour room temperature water into a deep bowl. Add salt and granulated sugar. Stir until dissolved.
Sift the wheat flour into another bowl with high sides. Add dry yeast. Use a hand whisk and stir until the yeast is evenly distributed throughout the flour.
Pour liquid into flour mixture. Start mixing with a spoon until a thick dough forms. Continue kneading on a dusted board until a soft dough forms.
Transfer the ball of dough back to the bowl. Pour in olive oil. Knead until the butter is absorbed into the dough ball.
Cover with a kitchen towel and leave to rise in a warm place for about 40-60 minutes. If the room is very warm, the dough will rise faster.
Punch down the rested dough. If necessary, add a little flour. Divide into 8 pieces. Form each piece into a ball. Cover the pieces with a towel and work with each one separately.
Roll out into a round layer 5-7 mm high.
Turn on the oven in advance. Line a baking sheet with parchment and place in the oven to preheat. Set the temperature to 260-270 degrees. Place the rolled out pieces immediately into the oven on a hot baking sheet.
Bake the bread cake for 5-7 minutes. Pita should remain white.
Unusual flatbreads are ready. Serve warm without anything or stuff it. Absolutely any filling for pita bread is easy to prepare. Bon appetit!
Recipe 3: puffed pita at home
- Flour – 1 kilogram
- Salt – 2 teaspoons
- Sugar – 2 teaspoons
- Dry yeast – 1.5 teaspoon
- Vegetable oil – 4 tablespoons
- Water – 600 milliliters
Sift one kilogram of flour into a mixer bowl and, mixing at low speed, add two teaspoons of salt and two teaspoons of sugar. When the flour is well mixed with sugar and salt, add 1.5 teaspoons of dry yeast and mix well again.
Gradually, while continuing to stir, pour approximately 600 milliliters of warm water into the flour.
Knead at low speed until a homogeneous dough is obtained and gradually, while continuing to knead, pour in 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Knead the dough for about 10 more minutes.
Transfer the dough to a large bowl, cover with cling film or a slightly damp towel and leave at room temperature to rise for about an hour and a half, the dough should double in volume.
Punch down the risen dough or fold it several times. And once again put it in a bowl, cover with film or a towel and leave for 20-30 minutes.
After 20 minutes, knead the dough and divide it into four parts. Roll each part into a ball and divide it into four parts again.
We got 16 identical pieces of dough, cover them with a towel and leave for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, roll each piece of dough into a ball and, observing the order, roll each ball into a flat cake with a diameter of 15 centimeters.
Place the pitas on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and bake in a preheated oven at 250 degrees Celsius for 5-6 minutes. The pitas should be soft and not brown.
Remove the finished pitas from the oven, place them on a wooden board, cover with a towel and let cool slightly.
Serve pitas warm with meat and salads.
Recipe 4: Hollow Pita Flatbread (step by step photos)
- Flour - 750 g
- Fresh yeast - 25 g
- Sugar - 2 tsp.
- Water - 450 ml.
- Sunflower oil - 2 tbsp.
- Salt - 1 tsp.
First of all, dissolve sugar in warm water, add yeast, mix well. Cover with a napkin and leave for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes the liquid should begin to bubble.
Meanwhile, sift the flour into a bowl and add salt. Don't pour out all the flour at once. It’s better later, when kneading the dough, to add more if necessary (it may be needed and vice versa - more)
Add the yeast mixture to the flour and knead the dough. The dough should not be “clogged” with flour, it should be quite soft. Knead for at least 10 minutes, the dough becomes smoother and softer with every minute. And the best thing is to entrust this task to a bread maker!
Lightly sprinkle the bowl with flour and place the dough here, after rolling it into a ball. Cover with film and leave in a warm place for 1-1.5 hours until the volume doubles. Now the best place for this is the oven with the light on.
After the specified time, take out the dough and knead it.
Cut it into 12-15 approximately equal parts. Roll each part into a ball. Don't forget to cover the balls with a napkin to avoid chapping. Leave them alone for 15 minutes, covering them with a napkin and protecting them from drafts.
Meanwhile, prepare the baking sheets. To save time, I use 3 (but ONLY bake one at a time!). Place parchment paper on them and sprinkle with a little flour. Turn on the oven to preheat to 250 degrees.
After 15 minutes, take the ball that we formed first and roll it out. The thickness should be approximately 6-8 mm. Place on a baking sheet. We will do the same with the second, third, etc. balls.
I prefer to prepare all the ingredients at once, since we will proceed very quickly and they will be baked instantly. Having preheated the oven to 250 degrees, quickly put the first batch in there, trying not to keep the oven door open for a long time. Bake for about 8 minutes.
This is how they puff up in the oven at the 6 minute mark, but you should always use your oven as a guide!
The pitas should not brown too much, otherwise they will be dry. 2-3 minutes after “blowing” is enough (again, remember the nature of your oven).
We bake only one baking sheet at a time in the “bottom” or “bottom + top” mode (not letting them brown too much).
When the first batch is ready, quickly take it out, let the oven warm up again to 250 degrees, and repeat the process.
I usually bake one batch at 180 degrees, which produces ordinary but very tasty bread cakes.
Recipe 5, simple: pita without yeast
This easy recipe will help everyone who wants to make Arabic pita bread without yeast. The flatbread is easy and simple to prepare; it can also be baked in the oven at 250 degrees. Be sure to try making it at home and you won’t regret it!
- Wheat flour - 2 Cups
- Salt - 1 teaspoon
- Vegetable oil - 4 tbsp. spoons
- Water - To taste (How much dough will take)
In a separate container, mix wheat flour and salt, add oil and mix everything thoroughly with your hands. Gradually add water to the mixture and begin to knead the dough. We do this until the dough becomes elastic and sticky enough. Cover the dough with a towel and leave in a warm place for 10 minutes.
After the time has passed, we begin to roll out the dough on a work surface previously sprinkled with flour. Roll out a thin piece of dough and place it in a frying pan without oil. Bake over high heat, turning over. Each side will take approximately 30 seconds. Now transfer the cake to a grill over the fire and bake until bubbly. Pita without yeast is ready, bon appetit!
Recipe 6: Crispy filled pita bread
- Wheat flour / Flour - 150 g
- Water - 100 ml
- Yeast (dry) - 5 g
- Salt - 1 pinch.
- Sugar - 1 tsp.
- Vegetable oil - 1 tsp.
- Cucumber - 1 piece
- Lettuce leaves / Lettuce - 6 pcs.
- Chicken (boiled) - 100 g
- Champignons (fried) - 3 pcs.
- Green onion - 2 sprigs.
- Mayonnaise - 2 tbsp. l.
- Black pepper (to taste) - 1 pinch.
Dissolve yeast in warm water. Then add salt, sugar and butter. Leave alone for 5 minutes.
Then add flour and knead the dough. Let it rise for 40-50 minutes.
Divide the dough into 6 parts. Roll each one thinly into a circle. Bake on a wire rack, or in the microwave, in a preheated oven at 250C. While we are rolling out the next one, the first one is already ready.
You will see if the pita is puffed up and turns golden, then it’s time to take it out.
For the filling you need to cut the cucumber and green onions. Boil the chicken and fry the mushrooms.
Cut the pita from one edge.
We spread a sixth of the filling and pour a little mayonnaise on it. Pepper to taste.
Similar flatbreads are loved throughout the Mediterranean: in Jerusalem pita goes hand in hand with falafel, in Arab countries all kinds of bread are served in pita, in Greece dried pita is an indispensable companion to other mezes. This is not surprising, since the first mention of pita is contained in the Old Testament! Like any bread, pita begins quite ordinary - kneading, proofing, shaping - but in the oven or in the oven a transformation occurs with pita: the flat cake suddenly swells up, like a ball, and that same “pocket” appears inside, in which it is so convenient to put filling.
This is precisely the main difficulty when baking pita. Once upon a time I tried to bake pita bread, but the “pocket” inside didn’t work out, but as soon as I took Alena Spirina’s recipe as a basis (she herself refers to Claudia Roden), the desired result was not long in coming. But I won’t lie, it’s all just a matter of the recipe - in addition to the correct proportions, you need a skill that only appears with practice. And even if it doesn’t turn out very well the first time, this “wrong” pita will be no less tasty.
Middle Eastern pita bread
High
3 hours
Ingredients
6 flatbreads
250 g wheat flour
135 g water
3 g dry yeast
3 g salt
15 olive oil
2 tbsp. corn flour
Mix wheat flour, water and yeast, add olive oil and knead with your hands or a mixer until you obtain a smooth, elastic and soft dough. Roll the dough into a tight ball, place in a bowl or pan, cover with a towel and leave for 40-60 minutes in a warm place until it has doubled in size.
The dosage is given for dry yeast, 11 grams of which (1 sachet) is used per 1 kilogram of flour. Read the labels on the package carefully, adjusting the required amount of yeast if necessary.
Punch down the dough, releasing the air (more precisely, carbon dioxide), divide into six equal parts, roll each into a small ball, cover and let rest for another 15 minutes.
But now we... will deviate from the recipe that I referred to at the very beginning. Set aside the rolling pin and, taking the ball in your hands, gently and persistently stretch it with your fingers into a flatbread a little more than 0.5 cm thick. Do not skimp on corn flour so that the surface of the flatbread is not sticky, stretch the balls evenly and slowly, and then the pita will rise without any problems in the oven. Transfer the rolled out pitas to oiled cling film or a floured towel, cover with the same cling film or towel, and leave for another 60 minutes. The pitas should rise noticeably in height, so even if some of them don't puff up completely in the oven, you should still have no problem making a pocket in them.
Preheat the oven to 240 degrees with a baking stone or just an inverted baking sheet inside. After this, place the pitas on it 1-2 at a time and bake for about three minutes - until each of them inflates like a ball. When the pita stops swelling, it’s time to take it out, otherwise it may harden and you won’t end up with pita, but crispy chips (also very tasty, by the way). Place the finished pitas in a pan with a paper napkin at the bottom and cover with a lid: there they will deflate and become softer. Serve the pitas while they are still warm, although they can be eaten the next day if they are quickly reheated first.
Today I will tell you how to prepare traditional Arabic pita bread very simply and most importantly without any problems. This bread is interesting not only for its simplicity and taste (and its taste is actually attractive), but also because during its preparation a void is formed inside, which I (and not only me) call a pocket. To make this pocket work (and later, thanks to it, I make shawarma with pita (the recipe can be read here “Shawarma in Pita - Classic Recipe with Chicken”) or shawarma, whichever is more convenient for you), there are several small secrets, which I will tell you in detail I’ll tell you now.
In order to get such appetizing and healthy “nibblers” (they are already prepared, cut) you need
1. Prepare this small set of products (ingredients)
2. Naturally, sift five hundred grams of flour in order to saturate it with a larger than usual amount of oxygen, and of course, get rid of possible debris that may accidentally get caught in the flour. We use the remaining one hundred grams of flour to sprinkle the table for rolling out the dough. Immediately add a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of granulated sugar there.
3. Add yeast there. My pack was 11 grams, but a pack of 7 grams is enough. I had fast-acting yeast, so I added it immediately directly to the flour. But if you have other yeast, for example active yeast, then you will need to prepare it first, namely, dissolve it in water.
4. And also pour half a teaspoon of soda into the flour. Here we need soda not to loosen the dough, but to soften it and make it more fluffy.
5. Mix all this dry and add, without ceasing to stir all the prepared water (it should be slightly above room temperature, that is, warm). It took me three hundred grams of water, but maybe a little more or less. It depends on the flour itself, namely on its moisture-absorbing properties.
The main thing is that all the flour goes away, is kneaded into the dough and does not remain loose on the dishes. The dough should be soft, but not liquid, and should not spread.
After kneading, cover the dough with film for further fermentation and yeast activity for twenty minutes at room temperature.
The dough turned out soft, as they say “alive”, mobile but not spreading, it should look like in the photo below.
6. Then add one spoon of vegetable oil to the dough
and knead the dough until smooth, homogeneous, but not for long (about ten minutes), so as not to overcrowd it, so that it remains just as pliable and soft.
7. Afterwards, grease the dishes and the finished dough with the remaining vegetable oil, cover with film and send it to a warm place for about twenty, thirty minutes, until it doubles in volume as in the photo below.
8. Then we take out the risen dough from the bowl and divide it into several equal parts. From this amount of ingredients I got eight of these wonderful balls, which, by the way, must first be formed before laying out by folding the edges of a piece of dough towards the middle. This way you get an even, smooth ball. Then we put them on the table and cover with film for ten minutes to pre-proof. During this time, the dough becomes more pliable, the gluten of the flour has time to relax, the dough becomes softer and it will be easier for us to roll it out.
By the way, before this stage, we turn on the oven of our stove at the highest power (for me it is two hundred and fifty degrees), so that it warms up completely and evenly for at least twenty minutes. Yes! We warm up the oven of our stove together with the baking sheet on which we will bake our pita so that it is at the same temperature.
But not very thick and not very thin, since during cooking they may not form a pocket and with a thin dough, so-called croutons are formed during baking (although they are tasty in themselves, our task is to make pitas, not croutons). The dough should be this thick, about three to four millimeters, but you can roll it out up to eight millimeters thick.
10. Place the rolled out pitas on parchment baking paper, cut to the size of the oven baking sheet (baking sheet) and cover them with film for final proofing for about twenty to thirty minutes. During this time, the volume of the pits will increase and their surface will become smooth.
11. Then carefully pull out the baking sheet and quickly drag the pitas onto it along with the parchment and place it all on the lowest grooves of the oven. Close the door and bake the pitas for four minutes.
At first, when baking pitas, you will not be able to take your eyes off the cooking process itself, as it happens in a very fascinating way, since from the first minute our pitas begin to swell right before our eyes, gradually turning into such balls.
But just don’t increase the baking time for the pitas in order to form a golden brown crust, as they instantly burn and a place like the one in the photo becomes not only unsightly but also brittle. Petes should be this pale.
12. After four minutes, the pitas should be removed from the oven and covered with a towel until completely cooled. And if you still overexposed a little pita like in the photo above, then cover them with a damp towel. Then you will save them.
Well, that's all - the pitas are completely ready for further use. They can be used as regular bread, but it is best to use them for their intended purpose, namely as a kind of edible utensil for various fillings, for example, for shawarma.
Enjoy your meal!
Cooking time: PT01H30M 1 h 30 min.
Let's start making the Jewish one by kneading the dough. It's a long process and requires some effort, but the pitas are so delicious that you might sweat a little. And if you have a food processor, it’s just a lifesaver! By the way, if you have a large family and you need a lot of pitas, just double the amount of all ingredients, then you will get 16 pieces. Let's begin. Take a bowl, sift flour into it, add salt, sugar and mix well. Add dry yeast and stir thoroughly again. Continuing stirring, gradually pour warm water into the flour. All this time we stir the dough. When it starts to stick together, you can put the spoon aside and knead it with your hand, this is much easier and more effective. 
When a homogeneous consistency is formed (after about 20 minutes), add vegetable oil and continue kneading for another 10 minutes until you get a beautiful lump. 
Cover the yeast dough with a slightly damp towel or seal with cling film and leave to rise at room temperature for 1.5 hours. The dough will double in volume. After the specified time, remove the dough from the bowl. 
Knead the yeast dough (press lightly with your fists so that the bubbles formed due to the yeast come out) or stretch the dough and fold it into several layers. 
Place back in the bowl and cover again with a towel or cling film. Leave for another 30 minutes. 
After half an hour, take the dough out of the bowl, knead the yeast dough and give it a round shape. 
Divide the dough into 2 even parts. If you took 2 times more ingredients, then this time divide it into 4 parts! There is no need to increase anything further, follow the recipe. 
Shape the halves or quarters into a round shape. 
We divide each of them into 4 parts. 
Leave the pieces of yeast dough under a slightly damp towel for 10 minutes. 
Remove the towel and shape each piece of dough into a round shape. Remember the order in which you round the pieces of dough, this is important. Prepare a baking sheet, cover it with baking paper, and turn on the oven to heat at 250 degrees. 
Now take one piece of dough in the same order as you rolled it. 
Roll it out into a round cake with a diameter of 15 cm. 
Transfer the cake to a baking sheet. We do this with all the pieces of dough. 
If you don’t have enough space for everything at once, don’t worry, the pitas bake very quickly, so you can do it in several batches, which is what happened to me. Place the baking sheet in the preheated oven. Pita bread only takes 5-6 minutes to bake. Don't be distracted by other things, you need to keep an eye on them. When the Arabic pitas puff up, immediately remove them from the oven. 
Make sure that the dough does not burst. It should be pale, not ruddy. 
Remove the pitas from the baking sheet, cover with a towel and let cool slightly, about 5 minutes. 
We prepare the second, third, fourth portions in the same way. 
Middle Eastern pita bread is ready to eat or fill with toppings. Best to fill
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