Sourdough Chronicles: Pita Bread

Pinjing — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:19:37 +0000

Sourdough Pita Rounds, resting.

As some of you may know, I’ve made several attempts at starting my own wild yeast starter over the past few months. After finishing up school in April, I finally had the time to dedicate to cultivating a starter. Thankfully, this time I was actually able to nurse my starter until the point where it was viable, due to several factors:

Started with 100% rye flour; rye flour acts as a springboard for “apturing” wild yeast.
Measured my feedings using a digital scale rather than spooning out tablespoons of flour and water. Now I realize that when baking bread, one needs to be both precise yet flexible; measuring out the right amounts of flour, water, salt, etc. is paramount to a good result, but one also needs to develop that “know how” to account for changes like humidity and temperature that could cause you to deviate from a recipe.
Made sure I fed the starter enough; currently I’m feeding my 100% rye/100% white starters at a 1:1.5:1.5 ratio every 12 hours. Yeah, it can be tiring to make sure the thing is fed every 12 hours, but I figure that it’s akin to keeping a dog or a cat; you wouldn’t forget to feed your pet, would you?
Started my starter during the tail end of spring; the warmer weather allowed for a faster startup.

However, the inevitable effect of all this feeding is the “throwaway” that each feeding generates; I’m estimating that I’m accumulating/throwing away about 1 cup of starter every couple of days; this doesn’t seem like that much but with rising flour/food prices nowadays, even those few tablespoons in the garbage seems like a huge waste. Now, whenever I feed, I store the throwaway in a small pyrex glass container and pop it back in the fridge until the next feeding.

So far, I’ve made a couple of things with the excess; sourdough english muffins, sourdough pancakes and today’s recipe, sourdough pita bread. What’s so exciting to me about baking with wild yeast is the miraculous transformation of a pasty lump of flour and water into bread just by adding a bit of additional flour, some salt, water (and maybe sugar/fat if you’re feeling fancy). And it rises and everything, without the addition of any yeast.

This time, I improvised a pita bread recipe by converting the pita bread recipe in the Williams-Sonoma Collection: Bread book to one that was leavened with my starter. Because I didn’t feel like heating up my oven, I decided to bake these on the stove in my mini 6″ cast-iron skillet.

Sourdough Pita Bread
Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Collection: Bread by Beth Hensperger
Makes six 6-inch breads

What you’ll need:

6.5 oz. ripe starter, at 100% hydration
3 oz. warm water
5.75 oz. unbleached all-purpose flour (I actually used a combination of 2.75 oz. white whole wheat and 3 oz. all-purpose), plus extra if needed
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for greasing
0.5 teaspoon salt

The procedure:
Combine starter, water, oil, and salt into the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed until well-combined. Add the flour, tablespoon by tablespoon until the dough pulls away from the bowl sides.

Switch to the dough hook and knead on low speed for 3-5 minutes, until the dough is stiff and sticky. Add flour by the tablespoon if the dough continues to stick to the sides of the bowl.

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, rotate dough in the bowl so that all sides are covered in a thin layer of oil. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap (I just top mine with a microwave cover) and let rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 1-1 1/2 hours.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 6 portions and roughly form each piece into a ball. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Prepare the skillet by heating it over low heat. Also, prepare a bowl with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a pastry brush for greasing the skillet.

Roll each ball into rounds about 6 inches in diameter and 1/4 inches thick. If the dough resists rolling out, let it rest for 10 more minutes. Cover the rounds with a towel and let rest 15 minutes until puffy.

Bread baking in the skillet.

Turn the heat on the skillet up to low-medium. Brush the skillet with oil. Transfer a round to the skillet, and cover for 30 seconds. Flip the bread over, using tongs and cover again for 30 more seconds.

Flipping the bread.

Uncover the skillet and continue to flip the bread every 30 seconds or so, allowing the bread to puff up. Bake until the bread is puffed and light brown (it took about 5 minutes for me). Transfer the pita to a plate and cover with a kitchen towel while you finish cooking the other pitas, remembering to grease the skillet between each baking.

Serve while still warm.

Too Much Food » 100% hydration starter

Sourdough Chronicles: Pita Bread