Preheat the oven as hot as you can get it (ideally 220, 240C). Also preheat the baking trays you are planning to use.

Important: the baking trays need to be very hot for the pitas to puff up properly.

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix together into a rough dough.

Take the dough out of the bowl onto an unfloured surface and knead it well for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Don’t be tempted to add any more flour to the dough. Sticky dough is good! 

Put the dough back in the bowl, cover it with clingfilm or a tea towel and leave it to rest for 1, 2 hours until doubled in size (time depends on the temperature of your kitchen, normally 1 hour if kitchen is 20 degrees Celcius and more if kitchen is colder).

Gently pull the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured work surface.

Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces (approx. 70g). Tighten into a ball and leave to rest on the work surface for 10mins.

After 10 minutes, take each ball of dough and lightly dust some flour on it. 

Flour your rolling pin and gently roll into an oval shape about 17cm long and 5mm thick.

After 10 minutes, take each ball of dough and lightly dust some flour on it. Flour your rolling pin and gently roll into an oval shape about 17cm long and 5mm thick.

Quickly lift a tray out of the oven, line with baking parchment and place the pitas on the tray. Return the tray to the oven. The pitas should be done after 3, 5mins. They should be puffed up into pockets and should just start to brown.

Eat fresh when they have cooled down a little. To keep them soft, place the baked pitas onto a plate and put a tea towel over them. They will otherwise go hard very quickly.

Note: Pitas are good for freezing, too. Freeze once cooled and reheat by putting them in the toaster or in the oven for a few minutes.