Bread Day

Hi, goodness me nearly three months since I last posted and only one at that, things were a bit hectic around here but I am back on track now and aim to be a good blogger and post regularly!!!!

Don’t ask me why but Tuesday is Bread baking day for me. I usually bake it in the morning having a pizza from a piece of the dough for lunch.  However, today I didn't fancy pizza as for the last two days I have had tomato based pasta dishes.  And yes I know pizza doesn't have to have tomato sauce.  I really fancied scrambled eggs on toast, but it is sacrilege to toast freshly baked bread.

One of my favourite ways of having scrambled eggs is to stuff it into pita bread.  I had looked at the pita bread in the supermarket last week, but was not going to pay nearly $4.00 (the cheapest) for 5 or 6 breads.  I wonder I thought and got my bread making book out, yes! There was a recipe for pita.  On looking closely I saw that it was practically the same recipe for my standard bread.  That solved I would cut a portion off and make the breads.

As you see by the photo above they puffed up wonderfully, but I didn’t have the oven hot enough and they were rather pale, but they were cooked.  For the next two I raised it to 130 Celsius from 120.  This time I was not careful enough and they went rather brown, but still okay.  So next time, take them out at 5 minutes rather than 6 as the recipe states.  Also I got the shape better second time round.

So all you need to do is cut a piece of your normal bread, have the oven at 120 -130 and cook for 5 – 6 minutes or till puffed up.  When they had cooled (except for the one I had for lunch) I pushed them down and popped into a plastic bag and froze.

The moral of this story is that I saved heaps and it pays sometimes to break out of your normal routine and try something different.  These four cost me 40 cents, they were the same size as the ones in the supermarket which had 5 in.  A massive saving.

By the way the pita was far better than shop brought ones, very yummy!

My basic bread mix is

2 tsp Sure bake yeast ( as I use a bread maker to help with the kneading, I have arthritis and y hands don’t have the strength)

2 cups of strong flour

1 tsp sugar

1 ½ tsp salt

1 tbsp. oil

1 cup of water or a bit more depends on the flour.

Put in bread maker in the order for your particular bread maker and set at basic and dough setting.  Check to see if dough needs more water when it is in its knead cycle.  I find that the dough cycle doesn’t give it long enough for a good rise so I tend to leave it in there for another hour.  Take dough out and shape as required.

For the pita breads I broke off pieces the size of a tennis ball, could be smaller.  Left the dough to settle for 10 minutes, this makes it easier to roll dough out roll it into a round or tear shape.  I used my pizza tone to cook the pitas.  So I heated it up and cook for 5 to 8 minutes at 220 degrees Celsius.

See you soon!