Whole Wheat Pita Bread

I love this bread for making paninis, and it's also awesome with hummus!

3 1/2 Cups whole wheat flour (or a combination of all-purpose flour, pastry wheat flour, etc)
2 tsp. salt (I use kosher)
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 Tbps. Olive oil, plus some for greasing bowl
Approx. 2 Cups water


**The recipe I originally used comes from (surprise, surprise) Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. He uses a food processor to make the dough; which I bet is quicker, but I don't have one big enough to 'do' bread dough so I just mix it and knead it by hand and give it ample time to sit. (I usually make the dough the night before -- it takes less than 15 minutes -- and then just let it sit covered overnight to cook the next morning.) But I'm sure you could get away with letting it sit for a few hours and then baking. **

• Add dry ingredients in large bowl and give a rough mix with a large serving fork.
• Mix in olive oil.
• Begin to add water a few tablespoons at a time until dough is "a well defined, barely sticky. easy-to-handle ball." (I am using my hands to mix and knead the dough still in the bowl at this point. If you've added too much water, just add a tablespoon or two of flour until you get the right consistency.)
• Lightly oil around the outsides and bottom of your bowl and cover the bowl. (Obviously the dough round is inside.)
• Let rise until the dough ball has about doubled in size. (Like I said, I just let it sit overnight, but with instant yeast, it probably only takes a couple of hours.)
  
• Deflate and divide into 6 - 12 pieces.
  

Enter Bittman's Fabulous instructions (taken pretty much word for word) noted in italics.

Keep all pieces lightly floured and covered. Preheat oven to 500 F. If you have baking stones, use them; if you so not, place a baking sheet on each oven rack.

On a lightly floured surface, flatten each piece into a disk, then roll it out to a 6- to 8-inch circle.

(Sometimes my 'rounds' are more of a lose interpretation of the word.)

Lightly flour each circle as you finish it, and cover it; do not stack.

When the oven is preheated, place as many of the pita rounds as will comfortably fit on your stones or baking sheets (start with the rounds you rolled out first.) In 2 to 3 minutes, the dough will puff up; remove it form the oven and repeat the process. If the breads do not puff up, they will still be fine, but next time try to make sure that there are no creases or seams in the dough after rolling it out.

Sometimes they don't puff up much.

And sometimes they puff up a lot, but just on one side. :)

I do prefer to use a pizza stone and I like the size of using 8 pieces from the dough (as opposed to 6 or 12). Enjoy!