Whole Wheat Pitas

Ingredients

1 cup (120 g) unbleached all- purpose flour

3 cups (360 g) whole wheat flour, spelt flour, or a combination

24 teaspoons (7 g) active dry yeast

1 tablespoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons sugar

1½ cups (360 ml) water

½ cup (115 g) plain whole-milk yogurt

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

Whisk together the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, yeast, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Whisk together the water, yogurt, and olive oil in another bowl.

Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula until you have a cohesive dough; it will be quite wet and sticky at this point.

Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for about 1 hour. Remove from the fridge and let rise at room temperature until close to doubled in volume, another hour or so, depending on the temperatures of your fridge and your room.

Generously dust your work surface and a sheet pan with either of the flours. Transfer the dough to the work surface and dust the dough with more flour. With a bench scraper or large chef's knife, cut the dough into 10 even pieces. Working with one piece at a time and keeping the rest covered loosely with a clean towel or plastic, shape into balls and arrange on the flour-dusted sheet pan. Let the balls rest until slightly puffy and risen, about 30 minutes.

Heat the oven as hot as you can get it-550°F (290°C) is ideal. Put your heaviest baking sheet on the bottom rack to heat. You can also use a large cast-iron skillet or a pizza stone.

Press the dough into 6-inch (15 cm) rounds (no need to actually roll them out, these are thick pitas). Carefully take out your heated pan and flop one or two pitas onto it. Return immediately to the oven and bake until the pitas are puffed and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. You can bake all on one side, or turn the pitas after a few minutes for more evening browning, but you risk losing oven temperature by opening the oven door a lot, so l usually just bake them on one side.

Continue with the rest of the dough. Serve as soon as you can. To save for more than one day, wrap well and freeze. You can also freeze the raw dough balls, thaw overnight in the fridge, and bake whenever you want fresh pita.

Notes

Pitas are such fun breads to make because they don't require long fermentation or tricky shaping. With a quick mix and a couple hours of rising, you have freshly baked bread to eat with something like Beef and Swiss Chard Soup with Spelt (page 217), Lamb and Bulgur Meatballs in Lemony Yogurt Sauce (page 187), and of course Freekeh Falafel (page 211). Or simply dip them in good olive oil and enjoy on their own.

-Makes ten 6-inch pitas