Bread Machines have become more and more versatile as time goes on, and allow us to make all different kinds of bread. What I’m going to talk about here is using your bread machine to make Pita bread. Store bought pita bread has nothing on the kind that you can make at home, it is often tough and tastes like cardboard, whereas warm pita that comes straight from an oven at home is absolutely delicious. Don’t take my word for the difference being noticeable though, try it for yourself by following these steps.

Now when we say bread machine pita we are bending the truth slightly in that the pita bread does not come out of the bread machine cooked and ready to eat, but that the machine does the prep work and makes the process a heck of a lot more simple! You still need your oven to complete the baking. So what do you need to follow this process? Simply a bread machine with a dough setting to allow you to do the kneading and get the mix ready for the oven. Even some of the cheaper bread machines have a dough setting so you don’t have to be right at the top of the market for this.

Recipe to Use

• 3 cups flour (white or whole wheat are both fine)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons yeast
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, kept at around room temperature
• 2 tbspoons olive oil

The steps to make the bread in this way are pretty simple:

Firstly, add the wet ingredients to your machine followed by the dry ingredients.
Next up, we set the machine to our dough setting.
Let the mixture knead the bread, it will tell you when it is ready.
Using the mix, create dough balls about the size of a plum, before using a rolling pin to flatten the pitas.
Put them in the oven to cook, they won’t take long at all, 5 to 10 minutes should be fine, you may then want to toast them before using them to make a kebab or for stuffing with your filling of choice!

Let me know how you get on using this recipe to make your own bread machine pita bread! There are of course ways you can vary it in order to add a bit more interest, or may I suggest cut up toasted pitas dipped in home made hummus for an exceptional party nibble!