You won't be disappointed with this amazing homemade whole wheat pita bread! It's not only very nutritious, but absolutely chewy and fluffy the way you hope it would be!
A 5 lb. bag of Prairie Gold White Whole Wheat flour minus 1 ½ cups flourOr use approximately 13 ½ cups flour
6tablespoonsVital Wheat Gluten Flour
6-6 ½cupswarm water
2packages active dry yeast4 ½ teaspoons
½cupwarm water
2teaspoonssugar
1tablespoonsalt
1tablespoonof butterjust enough to coat the pan where your first two rises take place.
Instructions
Mix wheat flour, vital wheat gluten flour and salt in a large bowl. Add warm water slowly and mix with hands.
In a small bowl, combine yeast, tepid water and sugar. Stir and let sit until foamy. Once yeast has dissolved, add yeast mixture to flour mixture.
Before kneading, combine the dough with your hands just until the flour is incorporated and then let the dough rest for 30 minutes. This is a special step for making wheat bread and is not necessary when making white bread.
Next, knead the dough with your hands, incorporating all of the dry and wet ingredients until you get a shaggy consistency that can be divided into two sections for kneading by a machine mixer with the dough attachment. Or continue to knead by hand. Dough should be moist, soft, smooth and pull away from the sides of the bowl when sufficiently kneaded.
Rub butter all over the inside of the bowl where you will let the dough rise. Put dough inside greased bowl and turn over once or twice to coat outside of dough with butter. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Spray the inside of the plastic wrap with cooking spray to keep dough from sticking.
Put the dough in a warm place to rise. Let dough rise until 1 ½-2 times its size.
Turn over dough. Punch down. Then cover and rise again until double in size.
After second rise, form the dough into balls, a size slightly smaller than a baseball. Lay the balls of dough 2 inches apart, placed between two bedding sheets, and a sheet of plastic on top. Let the balls of dough rise again for ½ hour to an hour until about double in size.
With a rolling pin and using light pressure, roll each ball on a bread board to half an inch thick. Put the flattened dough back on the sheets for its fourth and final rise.
Place an oven rack near the top of the oven and preheat to 500 degrees. Heat a sturdy cookie sheet on the oven rack to preheat the tray.With great care to not disturb the dough, gently place the dough on the hot tray and put in oven to bake.
Bake dough for approximately 2-7 minutes, depending on your oven. Pita bread will be slightly golden on top and bottom when ready.
Notes
This bread makes a terrific home for your leftover turkey!