The Food of Jerusalem – Part 4: Homemade Pita Bread

This recipe isn’t out of Jerusalem: A Cookbook, but I’m including it in this series of posts because it was an integral part of the meal. Bread is one of the staples of every cuisine, from the French baguette, to Indian Naan, each food culture has it’s requisite bread. So when I decided to make dishes from Jerusalem: A Cookbook, I knew I’d be serving pita bread alongside, so why not make it myself?

I made this pita bread following the recipe from Jennifer Reese’s Make the Bread, Buy the Butter (pg. 27). It was reliable and easy, and surprisingly enough, made perfect pitas that amazed my husband. He simply could not believe I made these at home.

You start simply enough by making your dough (half AP flour, half whole wheat) in a stand mixer and letting it rise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From there you divide the dough into 16 little balls, roll them out to flat rounds, and throw them (2 or 3 at a time) directly onto a hot bread stone.

I set my oven for 550 F and let it preheat almost an hour. When the rounds hit the hot stone, they will very quickly begin to puff. In the original recipe, she says they can take up to 8 minutes to bake. In my oven, it only took 2 minutes and the little beauties were puffed and browned. Just pull them off the stone and continue making rounds and baking until they are all down. They were fabulous right away, and I placed the leftovers in a big ziplock bag. I’m guessing they’ll last a couple of days at room temperature, but my hubby and I ate all of them in just a day and a half so I can’t say for sure.