inescapably obsessed with process reproducibility, in columbus, ohio
Pita mania continues here at the ranch. The soft and tender pita are lying around after the flurry of recent activity. Today we took some of the leftover pita, those made from atta flour, and topped them and baked at 450F. It is a most crisp and delicate substrate for pizza. Almost as good as starting with fresh dough.
After doing a bunch of chapati recently, I wanted to try the same cooking method for pita. My pita dough: water 180 g warm, unbleached white 300 g, active dry yeast 5g, olive oil 12 g, salt 5g, sugar 10g. Mix, knead and stash in fridge until ready. Can keep it in there for about 5 days and cook with it within an hour.
Tear off 40 g blobs of dough and round them, using scant flour to keep it from sticking, roll out as thin as you can, ca. 6" diameter. Let rest a minute. Preheat a dry pan, cast iron or any heavy bottom pan to a surface temp of about 400F (that's about medium on a big burner). Have some kind of perforated sheet pan on top of an adjacent burner.
Take the piece of dough and toss it in the dry pan for 40 seconds per side and then toss it on the perforated sheet until it puffs. Flip and let it cook 10 seconds or so on the other side to get some charry marks. Wrap the pita in a towel. They'll stay nice and soft when cooled.
Tonight's the international pot luck at Frankie's school. I tried my croissant dough for pain au chocolat minis. I'm not entirely fond of the no melt dark chocolate that is conventional for these, I prefer nutella. They came out pretty nice. The dough (500 g) is lean and was folded 33 x 2, or 54 layers with 114 g of butter. I froze the dough overnight and left it in the fridge for 6 hours before rolling these. Final proof about an hour. Whole egg glaze with a sprinkle of sugar.
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