One of the things I got for my birthday back in January was the America’s Test Kitchen Bread Illustrated cookbook. I really needed a good cookbook for bread because I haven’t been having a lot of success making bread.
The cookbook contains lots of different kinds bread recipes – from simple to very complex. It also has technique tips. Probably the thing I like best is many of the recipes use a stand mixer with a dough hook which helps me overcome my inability to figure out how long to kneed the dough.
One of my FAVORITE recipes from the book is for Pita bread. Pita is a meditterean flat bread which can be use to make wraps or just eaten with the meal. I like it for eating hummus or baba gaganoush. It is also super nice for making easy peasy kid pizzas at lunchtime.
The recipe in the book is very simple and the rise time is short enough that it can be made the same day for dinner. The hardest part of the recipe is not burning yourself while cooking the pita dough. You’re supposed to use a baking stone and peel but since I don’t have either of those I use a flipped over baking sheet and BIG spatula. The final product will keep for a week or so if you put it in a ziptop bag