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Pita bread

Ingredients

500 g spelt flour (300gm whole flour/200gm white)

230g water (+-20g - until flour and water properly combined for autolyse)

9 g (sea) salt

40 g sourdough culture (100%)

20 g olive oil

Method

Start with combining flower and water and let it seat for 30 minutes covered, so it doesn’t dry out. This is called Autolyse.

Then add the rest of the ingredients (I do it in a glass bowl for easy handling of sticky spelt dough). Then mix the ingredients with your hand and start kneading (still in the bowl) using stretch and fold technic and relaxing the dough in between by simply pinching it with your whole hand.

After about 8 minutes of vigorous kneading, when the dough is of homogenous consistency, cover it and let it ferment for 12 to 18 hours. Then weigh the dough and devide it in equal parts (I like my pitas about 80gm in weight).

Role the balls out of dough and let them rest covered for about 30-60 minutes. Heat up the oven to the maximum with the pizza stone in it.

When you are ready to bake, roll out the dough balls to about 5mm thickness, handling it very gently and swiftly place them in the middle of the pizza stone making sure that not too much heat is lost while opening the oven.

The maximum heat is detrimental, and will insure that your pitas puff up and create a pocket. I bake my pitas for about 4 minutes each and let them cool down in the plate covered with a cloth not to loose too much moisture and suppleness.

That‘s about it! Enjoy making and eating your yummy pitas!