If you’ve only ever had pita bread from a package, you’re in for a treat. Homemade spelt pita bread is worlds away from the dry, tough, grocery store version – and you need just five ingredients. It’s not any harder than making pizza dough and doesn’t need special treatment to puff up, only a very hot oven.

Like most homemade bread recipes that don’t contain any added preservatives or starches, these are best the day they’re made. You can halve the recipe if it’s too much. The pitas are still tasty after a day or two, just more prone to tearing.

This is a really exciting bread to watch bake, as it’s ready so quickly. You can see it puff up in seconds. For some more spelt-based flatbread recipes, try my vegan spelt naan, easy sweet potato flatbread made without yeast, or this Swedish crispbread.

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Spelt flour: pictured is all light (sifted) spelt flour, but you can do 50/50 if you’d like more whole grains. That’s what I usually do.
• Oil: I always use olive oil, but any light-tasting oil that’s liquid at room temperature will work.
• Yeast: this can be traditional yeast or fresh yeast. If you want to use instant yeast, skip the blooming step (but make sure it’s still active) and mix it right in with the flour. I have found that fresh yeast is a bit more effective here so if you can get it, choose fresh for this recipe.

Step by Step

Step 1: mix the yeast and water, then set aside for the yeast to bloom.

Step 2: add the oil, flour, and salt.

Step 3: mix to combine into a shaggy dough.

Step 4: knead until soft and smooth, about four minutes with an electric mixer, or about eight minutes by hand.

Step 5: set the dough aside to rise until doubled in size.

Step 6: punch down the dough.

Step 7: divide into eight pieces and roll out to 5mm thick.

Step 8: bake in a very hot oven in batches, 4-5 minutes per pita.

Recipe Notes

For this recipe and most of my other yeast-based bread recipes, I use an electric hand mixer to knead the dough. It’s great for most enriched doughs and only really doesn’t work for very low-hydration recipes like bagels. A decent hand mixer will be just as useful as a standing mixer for 99% of what a home-baker does, takes up much less space, and is much more affordable. I bake for a living and don’t own a standing mixer, so don’t feel like you need one! If you do have one, though, you can use it in the same way I outline below for the hand mixer.

If the breads aren’t puffing up in the oven, it’s almost definitely because the oven isn’t hot enough. You can keep track of this with an oven thermometer. In addition to the built-in oven thermometer, I have two portable ones in two different places in the oven to make sure the temperature is correct. They’re cheap and make a big difference for accurate baking if you’re often finding that your bakes aren’t turning out like the recipes say they should. Modern ovens are often off by several degrees (I had an ikea oven once that would be as much at 50°C off from what it was set to).

Some oven will have hot and cold spots. If you have two pitas in the oven and only one puffs up, I recommend baking them one at a time instead. Closer to the front is usually hotter.

Spelt requires less kneading time than standard wheat flour or bread flour. It contains less gluten and kneading too much will result in a crumbly bread. This recipe is a little more forgiving as it’s enriched, but you want a smooth, soft dough with a bit of stretch. Generally speaking you’ll never get a windowpane with spelt dough, even using stronger North American flour. See simple spelt bread.

Since we try to avoid any plastic, I don’t use plastic wrap in the kitchen (and haven’t for over a decade now – you really don’t need it, even for pastry). Covering the bowl with a tea towel and plate accomplishes the same thing and you don’t create any extra waste. If you don’t have a plate big enough to cover your bowl, a damp tea towel does the trick.

How to Store

Storage: while the pitas are best the day they’re baked, they can be stored in a sealed container at room temperature for up to three days. If they get too dry they can be oven-toasted or pan-fried with a bit of olive oil and added to a salad.

Freezing: transfer the fully cooled pita breads to an airtight container and freeze for up to two months. Thaw at room temperature. They are a bit fragile and slightly dry after freezing, but can be refreshed by spritzing with a bit of water and a few minutes in a warm oven (or low-heat frying pan, with a lid) before using.

Expert Tips

• Keep your yeast cold: fresh and dry yeast should always be kept in the refrigerator (and never above the stove). It will keep for longer and be more reliable.
• Preheat the baking sheet: this is a bit fiddly but does make a difference. Heating up the baking sheet before placing the pita on it makes for a much more reliable puff. I imagine you could use a pizza stone, but I don’t have one, so couldn’t test with it.
• Keep them wrapped: using a tea towel to wrap the pita breads in while the remaining are baking will keep them soft and pliable. The heat stays trapped within the towel, creating a bit of humidity, so they don’t dry out.

More Spelt Bread Recipes

Honey Oat Bread
Rye and Spelt Seed Bread
Spelt Flour Pizza Dough
Spelt Sourdough Bread