Homemade Sourdough Pita Bread

It's funny how one thing leads to another. I was looking for recipes to use up the excess thyme we have in the garden, and came across Bint Rhoda's za'atar bread. From there, it was only a link away from khubiz arabi cooked in a cast iron pan, which inspired me to compare it to pita bread.

My homemade sourdough pita bread.

Susan's pita bread on her Wild Yeast blog looked amazing, seemed pretty simple to make, and used up a lot of sourdough starter, so I decided to go with her recipe. I generally try to follow the instructions carefully, the first time I make something, but I discovered I didn't have quite as much starter as I thought, which meant I ended up only using 320g of it rather than her rather exact 376g.

It became too late for baking, so I put the dough into the fridge, where it sat for 2 days before I had time to do anything with it. To bring it back to the right temperature, I transferred it, in its covered bowl, into a warm water bath in the kitchen sink. Unfortunately, some water got into the bowl, and I hastily patted the dough dry with a paper towel. Fortunately, that was the last of the mishaps I encountered.

I divided the dough into balls, flattened each one to a few millimetres thick, put two or three of them onto a baking sheet, and slid everything onto a pre-heated pizza stone in the oven. It didn't take long before the bread started puffing up!

Dough rolled out into flat rounds.

Starting to puff up.

Bigger bubbles.

Conjoined bubbles.

It was a lot of fun watching the dough rise in the oven, sometimes with multiple bubbles joining up into a giant air pocket. I was worried that it may not be fully cooked through, so left the bread in the oven for a few extra minutes, which made the pitas a little dry.

I used to wonder how bakers got the holes into pita bread. Who knew it would be so simple? You can and should experience the magic too, whether you choose to use supermarket yeast or a sourdough starter!

A pita pocket.

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things. This month, it is hosted by Kerene from The Dream Baker.