The pitta is a typical Calabrian bread, prepared in a ring shape, wide, and low, with a hole in the center. Every baker has their version, airy, soft, crunchy, tender, with little crumb, but the shape always remains the same, and it comes from the Arabic, pita, flat bread. It’s very easy to prepare, and can be made in many ways. I prepared a simple version with direct dough, with several rounds of folds during rising, so that I would have a good soft bread, also easy to prepare, within a few hours, thanks to warm rising, in the oven with the light on and a pot of boiling water, a trick that helps rising especially in cold periods. It’s true that long risings with little yeast are preferred, but when time is short, it’s also useful to know how to proceed. It’s not the first time I’ve prepared pitta at home, but this version is the one I liked the most, and I think it’s also very easy to replicate, so here’s the recipe.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Rest time: 5 Hours
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 1
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients for Calabrian Pitta
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1.25 cups water
- 0.25 oz fresh yeast
- 0.5 tbsp salt
- 2 tbsp olive oil + a little extra
Tools to Prepare Calabrian Pitta
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Plastic wrap
- 1 Baking tray
- 1 Pastry cutter
- 1 Rolling pin
Steps to Prepare Calabrian Pitta
In a large bowl, put slightly warm water and yeast and mix with the spoon to dissolve the yeast. Add the olive oil and mix again.
Start adding the flours, half of it immediately, then the rest gradually while stirring with the spoon. When you’ve added 2/3 of the flour, add the salt, and continue mixing with the spoon. Take short breaks during the mixing process.
Finally, add all the flour and knead by hand. Work well on a pastry board, and once you have a nice elastic dough, put it in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest for at least half an hour, more if possible.
After the first rest, take the dough and, still in the bowl, make a round of folds by hand, forming a ball and placing it back to rise, covered. Repeat every half hour, or slightly more, for 2 more times. I did this in about 2 hours. By then, the dough had already risen.
After the third round of folds, the dough will be very elastic, and it will be very easy to form a loaf on the pastry board. Now we need to make the pitta. To prepare it, put a drop of olive oil on the pastry board, spread it to form a circle, oil the loaf a bit, and stretch it to form a disc, about 0.75 inches thick and approximately 13 inches in diameter. Use the rolling pin to make the disc even, without pressing too hard.
Transfer the pitta to a non-stick baking tray, and here with a 8 cm pastry cutter cut out the center hole. With the removed dough, I made a small bun.
Put it back in the oven to rise for a couple of hours, always in warmth, and after 2 hours, when the pitta is nice and puffy, we’re ready to bake.
Bake in a preheated convection oven at 482°F for 5 minutes, then reduce to 428-392°F for a total of 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let cool, then the pitta will be ready to cut into pieces and fill as you like, also great in place of bread, sliced thinly.
