Pita bread in the toaster oven?

I think that the toaster oven is an underutilized energy saving appliance. Sometimes, I just want to make a small piece of bread. I don’t want to heat up the oven for that.

I had about a half pound of Master dough from the “Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day” book in my dough bucket. So I thought I would that I would experiment and see if I could make pita bread in the toaster oven. I know the book doesn’t list this dough as a preferred option, but I thought I would try it anyways.

First, I took about half of the dough and rolled it really thin.

I had been heating up the toaster oven to 500 degrees for awhile. The toaster oven's baking pan began heating up at the same time. So it was hot when I put the dough on the baking pan.

Here's a picture of the dough puffing up! I guess that means I rolled it thin enough. The AB5 book said it was really crucial to roll it thin.

Tada! Here's a picture of the pita bread when I took it out of the oven. Looks like pita bread!!! :) I am happy, because you just can't buy great pita bread around here. I love it, nice and hot.

I wrapped the pita bread in a towel while they cooled so they would stay soft.

We have a brick oven bakery in our small town, "Scratch Bakery." Pretty amazing, for a town of 55,000. But a lot of people come here to escape the big cities and improve their quality of life. The owner told me that the reason my pita breads get hot is because my oven isn't hot enough.


We were able to enjoy warm pita breads! My husband said "It tastes like pita bread!" So I guess I couldn't ask for much more.

I think I am going to take my baking pan into a hardware store and have them cut an unglazed tile to fit my toaster oven. That might give and even better result! I have small foil baking pans that fit my toaster oven (from the dollar store!) and I can turn those upside down to keep in moisture for some of the recipes.


A few hours later...

I went to Lowes, and they cut an unglazed tile for me. It fits my toaster oven!!!


Now I have 3 empty dough buckets. They are talking to me..... "fill me up and bake!" they are saying!


I wonder what I will try next:? Is it time for the bagels, or should I try this new tile?

Bagels!!! I would love to make only one or two bagels at a time. It would be really easier to deal with a smaller pot and make mini bagels in my toaster oven.

Stay tuned!
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7/2/10--followup post:
I found that my toaster oven, even though it says it goes up to 500 degrees, really only goes up to 350 degrees.  I checked it with my thermometer. So pita and bagels probably would work better in higher temperatures.  Darn!