As promised, I’m writing up all my most used home recipes for breads given that the UK is currently under Covid-19 lockdown and everyone is learning to make bread. We have Yeast and Bread Flour available on our store website here.
Ingredients (makes 8-9 large Pittas):
- 8g Dried Yeast (you can use 7g if using a sachet, but I weighed mine out from a bigger pack and find 8g is perfect)
- 300ml Warm Water (I used a thermometer and mine was about 40 degrees celsius)
- 500g White Bread Flour
- 2 Tsp Salt
- 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
Mix the 300ml of warm water and 8g of Dried Yeast in a large bowl and leave for a few minutes to bubble and become frothy.
Once the yeast water is ready, pour in the bread flour, olive oil and salt. I always use extra virgin olive oil as I love the flavour, but any olive oil will work. Mix with a spoon until ingredients start to come together.
Once you have a very crumbly dough, you can knead your dough either in a stand mixer with a dough hook or by hand for about 10 minutes until smooth and stretchy. Try not to add extra flour for kneading if possible. Lightly oil your large bowl, place the dough back in, then cover with a tea towel and leave to prove in a warm area for approx 1 hour (or until it has double in size).
I took a before any after photo above to show you the difference in size after proving. Mine was next to a radiator so it proved really quickly (about 40 minutes), but timings depend on how warm your house is.
Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and cut into 8 or 9 evenly sized portions (this is for large pitta breads, you can double the portions if doing smaller ones).
Flatten each portion down with the palm of your hand, then roll out until flat and even, in a large oval shape. You can roll these fairly thin as they will rise in the oven.
Preheat your oven to 230 degrees (fan assisted) and lightly flour a large baking tray. Place a few pitta breads at a time on the tray and bake for 5 minutes until slightly golden and puffing up at the edges.
Once cooked, wrap the pitta breads in a clean tea towel to keep them soft and stop them going too crispy. You can eat them once slightly cooled. If you don’t want to eat the straight away, simply pop them in the toaster to warm and crisp them up again. You can also freeze these for up to a month!
Perfect served with hummus and dips, or filled!
Enjoy,
Jem x
