High hydration whole wheat pita dough, or is it pizza?

What I wanted to do was make a pita that didn’t come out all leathery. Past pitas had been tasty, but rapidly turned tough and dry and I just knew I could do better. I’d also never played with high hydration doughs (basically very soft wet goop) and I had a pretty good idea that this was the route to the pita I wanted. Makes about 15-20 smallish pizzas or pitas.

I’m only working with a domestic oven and I have no quarry tile / pizza stone for my oven. What I ended up with is, well, not exactly a pita, almost a pizza. It is fantastic, with crunchy edges, soft centre, great for garnishing or wrapping. Oh, and it’s whole wheat but doesn’t taste healthy.

Based roughly on Alford & Duguid’s pita recipe in Flatbreads and Flavours.

In a standup mixer dissolve 2 tsp of instant yeast in 4 cups of tepid water. Add 5 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 Tbsp salt, 1 Tbsp olive oil, ½ tsp dried thyme. Mix, cover and allow to sit for 30 minutes up to 2 hours. Using the kneading attachment on low speed, gradually incorporate 3 ¼ cups of whole wheat flour until you have a very loose dough, almost a batter but a bit thicker. Make sure to scrape down the sides and the bottom of the mixer bowl. Knead the dough for at least 10 minutes on low. I don’t know if I needed to knead it for that long but I did and it worked.

Scrape the dough into a large Tupperware, one large enough so that the dough only takes up 1/3 of the space. If you don’t have then don’t worry just use what you have.

Refrigerate the dough overnight.

The next morning take the Tupperware out of the fridge. If you didn’t have a large enough Tupperware then transfer the dough to a large bowl and put it in a plastic bag or cover with saran wrap. Let the dough sit in a cool place until that evening.  The air temperature was about 15˚C / 60˚F.

When the dough looks bubbly and fermented and has just about doubled in size,  about 8 to 10 hrs, turn your oven to broil and place a doubled up baking sheet on the top rack. Let it heat for at least 15-20 minutes.

To make the pita:

Using a large spoon or cup, scoop about 1/3 – 1/2  of a cup of dough onto a very well floured surface. Flatten and stretch the dough until it is roughly 6 inches across. Remove the trays from the oven, flip the dough onto the pan, drizzle with olive oil, and bake for 4 or 5 minutes until it begins brown around the edges.

To make the pizza:

Follow the directions above but remove the pita from the oven after 1 minute.  Garnish the beasts as you wish, I used ajvar (a spread made of roasted peppers), chicken, onion, gruyere, feta, and kind of varied all of those as I went along, then garnished with some arugula and a drizzle of olive oil to serve.

You can refrigerate the dough for a few days, up to a week according to Alford & Duguid, but make sure to bring it back to room temperature before using. No not in the microwave.

Tagged as: ajvar, bread, feta, gruyere, pita, pizza