Recipe: Whole Wheat Pita Bread

[Guest guest]

This came over another group I'm on and I thought I'd pass it along. The

only non-SB ingredient here is the 1/3 cup honey and that can easily be

replaced with 1/3 cup agave nectar.

Whole Wheat Pita Bread

2 3/4 cups warm water

1/3 cup honey (agave nectar)

1/3 cup olive oil

1 to 2 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp yeast

1/4 cup wheat germ (optional)

1/2 cup fresh ground flax seed (optional) If you don't add this and the

wheat germ, up the flour

6 to 8 cups whole wheat flour

2 Tbsp gluten

I dump all this together in my mixer and mix for about 10 minutes. I start

with the 6 cups of flour and add more if it is too sticky. With whole wheat

flour though you want your dough a little wetter than white bread. The

Whole wheat takes loger to absorb the water in the recipe. As it rises it

will dry out some.

Let the dough rise for about an hour in a warm place. Punch the dough down

and divide into about 32 pieces. Cover them with a cloth as you work with

the dough.

The oven should be pre-heated to 450* F with a baking stone in there. If

you don't have a stone you can use a cookie sheet but it won't be quite as

good.

Roll out 6 or so of the dough balls in plenty of flour to keep them from

sticking to the rolling pin or the stone.

Place the flattened dough on the hot stone and bake for 3 min on one side,

flip them and bake 3 min on the other side. I have found that the bread

turns out just fine if left on one side for 6 min. Suit your self there.

I have found that the thicker I roll the dough, the softer the bread. We

like them a little thick. As they come out of the oven I wrap them in a

dish towel to keep them from losing too much moisture.

We like to make up several batches of these on Tuesdays and freeze them for

use during the week.

This dough recipe also makes good loaf bread. After letting it rise for 1

hour, shape it into loaves and let rise for about 20 - 30 min in a warm

place. Bake at about 350 for 45 min. The gluten added to this recipe

really makes nice and soft 100% whole wheat bread. I also use hard white

wheat for the flour. Turkey red wheat will also be good but not as soft a

bread.