Whole wheat pita bread #2

This whole wheat pita bread is delicious! It's surprisingly light and fluffy for whole wheat, and you'll never want to eat a store-bought pita after making this!

5.0 oz. whole wheat flour (1 cup) 10.0 oz. white whole wheat flour (a little more than 2 cups) 1 tsp. instant ("bread machine") yeast 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. sugar 8.0 oz. milk 2.0 oz. water (give or take, to make a nice ball of dough)

The white whole wheat flour is from King Arthur and is made from winter wheat and it's still 100 % whole grain. It's also high gluten, so it behaves more like bread flour than plain whole wheat flour.

Mix all of the ingredients with the dough hook with the mixer until a ball of dough forms, adding water as necessary. Knead for 8 minutes. You should keep an eye on the mixer - this is a really tough dough and it completely jammed my Kitchen Aid mixer once.

Update 6/26/2012: Now I know the mixer was on its last legs and completely failed when making Ciabatta #3 . Who knew that even the new Kitchen Aid "Professional" 6 quart mixers have plastic housing on the gear assembly? Mine cracked, which then caused the worm gear assembly to slip and strip off several teeth. A new all-metal housing, a new gear and grease are on the way.

Remove the ball of dough from the mixer bowl, lightly oil the bowl with spray oil, return the ball of dough to the bowl and flip once. Loosely cover with plastic wrap (or a towel) and let rise for 2 to 3 hours in a warm place until doubled in size.

Divide into 3.0 oz balls. You should get 8 and probably have a little left over. Let rest for 10 minutes, then roll out into circles 5 to 6 inches in diameter.

Put 4 circles on each of two half sheet pans with silpats and let rise for 30 minutes. You could also use parchment paper. I think the idea is to make sure the bread doesn't stick to the pan when it puffs up, since presumably it won't puff up.

Bake for 4 to 5 minutes at 450°F on the bottom rack of the oven until puffed up.

This is pretty much the same recipe as my original recipe , except this time I used 1/3 whole wheat flour and 2/3 white whole wheat flour instead of bread flour. I also simplified the steps, since with instant yeast (bread machine yeast) you don't need to go through all the steps you do for active dry yeast.