Whole Wheat Pita Bread for #Twelve Loaves

The #TwelveLoaves theme for January is a CLEAN SLATE—the sort of recipes that take fresh, simple ingredients and get us back to the basics of bread-making. I considered a simple white bread, a healthy whole-grain loaf, or a basic pizza dough but came back to this Pita Bread recipe found on A Fresh Loaf. I like the idea of a pita bread to start of my baking this year because of its simplicity. You can eat it freshly baked, you can make pita chips, you can use it as a base for a homemade pizza.  Eat it with soups, make a sandwich, slice it and baked until crunchy for croutons on a salad. Yes, this is a versatile bread. And better yet, making pita bread is not complicated. You have the few ingredients needed in your pantry already and the entire process takes a few short hours. Make it today for a meal tonight!


The recipe at A Fresh Loaf is one I will go back to again. A simple process with fantastic results. I chose to make pitas with some whole wheat flour—instead of 3 cups of all purpose flour I used two cups of all purpose flour and one cup of whole wheat flour. How will you modify the recipe to suit your tastes?

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 packet of yeast ( I used instant)
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, slightly warmed
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Directions:
I used a stand mixer but this recipe can also be made by hand.

Mix the flours, sugar, and yeast together. Add the water and olive oil. Let the dough come together as you mix on low speed for at least 10 minutes.

Put the dough into a bowl coated with baking spray. Cover with plastic wrap (also coated with baking spray) and let rise until doubled, about 90 minutes.

Once the dough has risen, knock it down (this means to punch it down in the middle so that it deflates), then divide it into 8 pieces. Roll the pieces into balls, cover and let rest for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Turn a baking tray upside-down and let it preheat in the oven too. You need a very hot surface on which you’ll place your pitas to bake. The recipe suggests spraying your baking surface with water right before you place your dough in the oven.

Roll the dough balls out into thin circles. You may only fit a few at a time on your baking sheet. The pitas only cook a short time so you can work in batches and have perfect pitas in no time. I baked my pitas for 5-7 minutes each.  I had more success with thinly rolled dough (about 1/8 inch) as opposed to 1/4 inch thick dough.

We'd love for you to join along and bake each month. Check out these links for inspiration. Here are the details:

Alabama Light Bread by Dorothy | Shockingly Delicious

Basic White Bread by Renee | Magnolia Days

Classic Oatmeal Bread by Liz | That Skinny Chick Can Bake

Grandmom’s Dinner Rolls by Jennie from The Messy Baker Blog

Italian Potato Bread by Rosella | Ma Che Ti Sei Mangiato

Molasses Wheat Quick Bread by Deb | Knitstamatic

Pandoro by Paula | Vintage Kitchen

Rosemary Olive Oil Bread by Alice | Hip Foodie Mom

Whole Wheat Pita Bread by Holly | A Baker's House

Whole Wheat Sea Salt Bagel by Lora | Cake Duchess

Orange Date Nut Loaf by Katerina | Diethood

#TwelveLoaves January: Clean Slate. Bake a bread, yeast or quick bread, loaf or individual. January #TwelveLoaves is all about a clean slate. After the holiday indulgences, we are starting the year with simplicity. Have fun baking with whole grains and other flours. Share with us your favorite basic bread recipes. Let’s get baking!

Just follow the rules, it’s as easy as pie:
1. When you post your Twelve Loaves bread on your blog, make sure that you mention the Twelve Loaves challenge in your blog post; this helps us to get more members as well as share everyone’s posts. Please make sure that your Bread is inspired by the theme!
2. Please link your post to the linky tool at the bottom of my blog. It must be a bread baked to the Twelve Loaves theme.
3. Have your Twelve Loaves bread that you baked this January, 2013 posted on your blog by January 31, 2013.

Would you like to bake along with us? The #TwelveLoaves bread baking project was created by Lora at Cake Duchess; a monthly baking adventure created for the love of bread. Drop Lora a line to join in on this monthly bread baking fun!

Follow @TwelveLoaves on Twitter See what’s freshly baked for #TwelveLoaves on our growing Pinterest board.

I have submitted this post to Wild Yeast for consideration.