Lars, look for real Middle Eastern recipes. Try Syrian. My favorite pita are Syrian. I used to know the difference between with pocket and without but I can't recall it. I have a recipe that reads really well, but I haven't made it, and don't have it here. I also have a Syrian cookbook I can check for you, later.

You baked them on cookie sheets? From my experience you need a baking/pizza stone and cookie sheets don't work even though he does recommends that method. You need that quick/massive amount of heat into the dough for the pocket.

I cook 2 at a time so I can get them in quick and shut the door. You can also put them on parchment if you have trouble sliding them quickly onto the stone.

The recipe I use is also at 500 degrees but bakes for 3 minutes exactly. His at 5 on the stone and then 3-5 off the stone does seem way too long.

I've made that recipe and most of the pitas puffed up. I also seem to recall preheating the cooky sheets. Mine were not as large.

I'm curious to see a cross section view - did they separate at all?

Maybe the yeast was expired?

I also use preheated baking sheets to make pita bread, and it works most of the time. I didn't bake mine nearly as dark as yours, but you can see that they puffed up nicely. (This is an old picture)

I used this recipe from Serious Eats, which called for heating the pans in the oven first, then baking 3 minutes on the heated pans. It worked really well, although I found it tricky to transfer the dough rounds from the counter where they were rising to the hot sheets. Elery said a couple looked more like the Continent of Africa than they did round pita breads, but they all tasted good.

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/08/perfect-pita-bread-recipe.html

Good luck! If I remember correctly I made 11 pita rounds, and two of them did not rise but the other 9 were perfect!

Annie

I won't cook 11 pitas, which is why I cut the recipe in half. I do have pizza stones, and so maybe I will just use those in the future instead of the baking pans. I think James Beard is perhaps outdated by now - the book of his I have is very old. I will also check my Lebanese and Mediterranean cookbooks for additional recipes.

I might also consider using preheated baking sheets - I didn't know about those before!

My yeast was not expired - I store it in the freezer and proof it before making a recipe.

I think 500° at three minutes per side sounds better than Beard's recipe. I might also try cooking them outdoors on the Big Green Egg, the way we cook pizza from time to time. I do like fresh pita better than what I buy at the market, even if I go to a Middle Eastern market, although I get excellent lavash and Armenian breads there that I am not yet ready to try to duplicate.

While is book is dated and he sometimes uses more yeast than we would now I do love the book. His Sweet Potato Rolls are a staple for Thanksgiving.

Yes, I also have that book and use it to make a couple of favorites, so I do use it. It never occurred to me to look for pita bread there, although I do not know why.

Lars, I only made a whole recipe because Elery and I were still working when I made that first batch. Because he was living 3 hours away, he took half of them home so he could use them for his lunches. A half batch would certainly be more manageable and take less time to bake, as only a couple could be done at a time. I do think the Big Green Egg is a very good idea, you could get that hot enough easily.

Annie

Here's the recipe I'd saved. The picture looks right. :) Annie's don't look wrong, but these look right. Similar recipe to what's been discussed here.

https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/bread/bread-flatbread/pita-bread-syrian.html

I've checked other cookbooks I have for pita recipes (I really don't have that many cookbooks), and most of them did not have a recipe for it at all, and I checked my Greek Cooking in an American Kitchen 1982 (flatbread recipe only, similar to Armenian bread), Lebanese Cooking 1992 by Susan Ward, The Mediterranean Kitchen 1989 by Joyce Goldstein, The Complete Bread Book - 1983 (not so complete after all, and it is Kevin's), The New York Times Cookbook 1990 (this was a gift), and none of these had a recipe for making pita bread. Then I checked Sunset's Easy Basics for International Cooking 1984 and finally found one. I'm getting the idea that these cookbook authors expect you to buy pita bread rather than make it, but as you can see, they are all fairly old. I'm not big on collecting cookbooks, and the newest ones I have are all Japanese. Anyway, the Sunset book says to use a baking sheet, but it also says to use the lowest rack in the oven and bake at 475° for five minutes or until pockets form and the bottoms are brown. Then you are supposed to change the heat to broil, flip the bread, and broil it 4" below the heat for about 1 minute. I can only broil in my toaster oven, and so this might be a problem. I have pizza stones, and I put the baking sheets on the stones when baking, but I may have to try another method. At this point, I might try this recipe next.

This recipe says to use a cast iron skillet, and so I might try it instead. I have several iron skillets plus an iron comal, a cast iron grill, and a 15" diameter iron pizza pan, and so iron might be the best way for me to go. Pati cooks her tortillas on cast iron and gets them too puff up, and so this may be a better method.

I think most cookbooks (especially old ones) expect you to buy pita bread, but it cannot be that difficult to make, and I always have the ingredients on hand, plus the time to do it. I buy pita bread at a Syrian market, but I know that whatever I buy at a market is probably a few days old, although the Syrian market should have the freshest pita. For me, it is more of an ordeal to go to the market to buy it than to make it, once I get the procedure down.

This Youtube video looks helpful, and at least it is in English:

This one looked good at the beginning, but I did not like the finish or the large diameter:

I like the Italian video because he uses semolina flour as I do, and I have no trouble understanding Italian. However, he baked his in the oven, and I want to use cast iron on the cooktop.

Evidently you can only do one video per post, and so I had to delete two of them.

I decided to check one more cookbook that I have The Soul of a New Cuisine (which is African) by Marcus Samuelsson, and it DOES have a pita recipe. He uses cardamom, ginger, and garam masala in his recipe (giving it an Indian flavor, but I can omit those), and he recommends baking it on a baking sheet at 600°! Also, he says to roll the dough out to 1/2" thick, which is much thicker than any of the other recipes. This only added to my confusion. I am really curious as to what the best thickness of the dough is and whether the iron on the stovetop will be better than the oven. My BGE will definitely get to 600° (and higher, as I have melted aluminum in it before, which requires 1100°, but I don't want to start a wood fire just to make four or five pitas.

Thanks for your recipe Plllg, and BTW, I did set off the smoke alarm while making it.

Here's a Martha Stewart video

I think if I bake it on a hot cast iron griddle/pan, the surface should be hot enough to make it puff. How thick do you make your dough? I am thinking that 1/4" is probably best, and I think I rolled mine out thinner than that, which may have made a problem.

I would try the egg before a griddle. I think you need a hot oven and a hot cooking surface. Pita needs to be cooked.

I prefer thinner but sometimes I get lazy. Somewhere between 1/4-1/2”.

Maybe I will try heating my cast iron griddle in my regular oven (which I think gets to 550°) and bake them on that. It sounds like I have a lot more of experiments to do, but this is something that I do want to be able to make the way I like it.

I'm thinking also that I can put a domed cover over my griddle to simulate an oven. I have several large domed lids, including one for a wok, and I could try using those.

We ended up buying pita bread because I found fresh fava beans at the farmers' market (and also at Gelsons), and I will be using those this week to make falafel. I've only made falafel with dried beans that I soaked before, and so this will be a new experiment. I'm hoping that the fresh beans will not be too wet.