Pitas! The envelope of the bread world!

Pitas are a delicious flatbread that puffs up when it bakes, creating a lovely little pocket inside that you can stuff full of yummy things like falafel, meats, salad, really whatever you like! You can also just rip apart the pita and use it as a receptacle for large scoops of dip! Yum! These are little tricker of a bread to make, but even if they don’t turn out perfectly, they will still be super delicious!

Pitas are perfect for dipping!

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Pitas

Yield: 8-10 pitas, depending on the size you want

• 2 1/2 cups Flour

• 1 Tablespoon Sugar

• 1 teaspoon Salt

• 1 1/2 teaspoons Instant Yeast

• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

• 1 cup Water, warm

1. In the bowl of a mixer, stir together your flour, sugar, salt and yeast.

2. Add the olive oil and water and knead with the dough hook for about 6 minutes, until the dough forms a nice smooth ball that isn’t sticking to the sides of the bowl.

3. Place dough ball into a greased bowl with a lid and let sit at room temperature until doubled (about 1 hour).

4. Remove dough from bowl and using a knife, divide into 8 (or 10) even pieces.

5. Cup each dough ball in your hand and roll it in a circle on the counter until the dough forms a nice little ball. Place on a lined or floured baking tray and cover with a tea towel, then repeat with the remaining dough balls until they are all nice and round. Let rest at room temperature at least 20 minutes to relax the dough.

6. Grab one dough ball at a time and roll into a thin flat circle about 6-7” in diameter and about 1/8” thick. If your dough is just not rolling out thinly, roll it as much as you can, then place back onto a parchment lined baking tray with a tea towel on top, and let it rest for about 10 minutes (I just waited until I had rolled out all the dough balls), then come back to it and roll it out a little more until it is the thickness you want. By this time the dough will have relaxed a bit and it will allow you to roll it thinner.

7. Cover all your rolled out pitas with a tea towel and layer in between pieces of parchment paper so they aren’t overlapping.

8. You can bake these in a 450*F preheated oven for about 4-8 minutes until puffed and lightly golden, or you can bake them on the stove in a pan which I did.

9. To bake on the stove in a pan, heat your pan to medium-high heat, I found my stove worked best at medium heat, but see what works best for you. Make sure your pan is nice and hot before you add a pita.

10. Place one pita down flat into the hot pan, as soon as it starts to bubble (about 15 seconds), flip it over, then once it starts expanding flip it again, then your pita might be fully expanded, or your might need to flip it again, depends on the pita. If you are like me, my pitas weren’t all the exact same thickness, so some of them needed an extra flip or two, but use your judgement, if it’s starting to burn, flip it. They only take a minute or two to bake.

11. Don’t worry if you burn some, they are still delicious, and baking them off is definitely a learning curve! Regardless these pitas are WAY more delicious than anything you will buy in the store.

12. Enjoy the labour of love and remember, practice makes perfect!

The envelope of the bread world!

Chocolate Marshmallow Puff Cookies!

I’m not going to name names, but there is a boxed cookie that I loved as a child. It’s a graham cracker with jam and marshmallow that is covered in chocolate! It was pretty much the fanciest boxed cookie I had, and you know how to make a boxed cookie even better? Make your own version from scratch! It’s quarantine so you shouldn’t really be in the grocery store anyways, plus there is SO many hours in the day to use up, and what better way than making cookies! This recipe starts with one batch of the graham crackers we made yesterday (scroll down for that recipe). Then we are going to make some homemade marshmallows! Marshmallows are great on their own, you can definitely just make the marshmallow recipe then press it into a grease and lined, and greased AGAIN 8”x8” baking pan. Then cut it into squares with a greased knife and toss in icing sugar, so delicious!

SOOOOOOO FUN!

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Chocolate Marshmallow Puff Cookies

Yield: 12-18 (depending on how many graham crackers you have)

Bases:

• 1 batch of home made graham crackers cut into circles and baked (I had 18) - You could also use packaged graham crackers, it’s just going to be a bit tricker since they are square

• about 1/2 cup of jam (raspberry and strawberry are really good with the chocolate)

Marshmallows:

• 2 packages Gelatine

• 1/3 cup Cold water

• 1 cup Sugar

• 1/3 cup water

• 1/3 cup Honey

• 1/3 cup Corn Syrup

• pinch of Salt

• 1 teaspoon Vanilla (optional)

Topping:

• 2 cups Chocolate

• 1 Tablespoon Oil

• sprinkles! (optional)

1. Place your graham crackers onto a parchment lined baking tray in a single layer. Scoop about 1 teaspoon of jam into the centre of each graham cracker, then set the tray to the side.

2. in the bowl of your mixer, pour 1/3 cup of cold water, then mix in your gelatine, set this to the side to rest, it is going to absorb the water and firm up.

3. In a small pot, place your sugar, 1/3 cup water, honey, corn syrup and salt. Heat over high heat until it reaches 240*F. Then remove from heat.

4. Place your bowl with the gelatine onto the mixer with the whisk attachment.

5. Turn the mixer onto the lowest speed, and while it’s mixing, slowly pour in the hot syrup until the whole pot is mixed in and the gelatine is all melted.BE CAREFUL THIS IS SUPER HOT!

6. Turn up the speed to high, and whisk for 8-10 minutes or until the marshmallow looks super white and fluffy and the bowl does not feel hot to the touch.

7. Add your vanilla extract and mix for another minute or until combined.

8. Scoop your marshmallow into a piping bag, or a ziplock bag with the end chopped off, and pipe the marshmallow in a circle around the jam on your cookie, then continue piping over top of the jam until you have a nice mound of marshmallow and you can’t see any jam peeking through. It will look similar to the swirl on a cupcake or soft serve ice cream cone. Do this for all of your graham crackers.

9. Once all the marshmallow is piped, let your cookies sit at room temperature for about 2 hours until they firm up.

10. In a microwave or double boiler, melt your chocolate and oil until smooth and melted.

11. Dunk each of your marshmallow cookies into the chocolate, toss until covered and then shake them off a little so there isn’t too much excess chocolate on them, then place back onto the parchment lined tray. You can add sprinkles now if you love sprinkles as much as me, or just leave them off.

12. Place your tray into the fridge for about 20 minutes to set the chocolate up and then enjoy!