Chewy Pita Day Two

Making the chewy pita loaves is relatively straight forward once you've mastered the technique of dividing the dough up into balls, proofing them while the oven preheats, then flattening them, and sliding them off the peel onto the hot baking steel. Here's how:

The dough we put together last night should look like this:

Preheat the oven, with a baking steel, as high as it goes, which is 565 degrees for me:

Flour the surface of the dough:

Scrape its sides off the container, and flip it onto a floured work surface:

Fold and roll the dough into a log shape:

Divide it in half:

Then divide the first half into three equal pieces:

And fold each piece onto itself to make a ball shape:

Repeat for the other half, three equal pieces first:

Then fold each one onto itself to get three dough balls:

Put the dough balls in the container and sprinkle them with flour:

Cover the container and proof until the oven is hot enough to bake. Dunk a dough ball in flour:

Flatten it into a disc with your hands first:

Then stretch it evenly with a rolling pin:

Flour its face and flip it on the peel:

Slide it onto the baking steel:

Watch the loaf puff:

Remove the loaf and place it on a cooling rack. Repeat with the second dough ball:

Flatten the dough ball manually first:

Then stretch it with the rolling pin:

Flour its face and flip it onto the peel:

Slide it onto the hot baking steel:

Watch the loaf puff up:

Remove the loaf placing it on a cooling rack. Repeat the steps above with the remaining four dough balls.

Enjoy them warm!