Pita Lab
Pita: what 93 recipes agree on
The pocket bread: water, oil, salt and yeast per 100 g of flour.
93 recipes from 69 sites, each reduced to grams and written as baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient per 100 g of flour, so a small recipe and a double batch line up. Below: the typical batch, how far recipes stray from it, and a page for every recipe with a link to the original.
Recipes
93
from 69 sites
Typical flour
400 g
about 3 1/4 cups
Oven
475°F
245°C · median of 65
Bake time
14 min
most 6 to 25 min
The typical batch of pita
The median of all 93 recipes for each ingredient, scaled to 400 g of flour. No single recipe is exactly this: each line is the middle of its own distribution. “Most recipes” means the middle half, from the 25th to the 75th percentile.
| Ingredient | Grams |
|---|---|
| FlourThe scale for everything else | 400 gabout 3 1/4 cups |
| WaterMost recipes use 240 to 290 g | 255 gabout 1 cup |
| OilMost recipes use 10 to 27 g | 17 gabout 1 tbsp |
| Sugar30% use none; the rest mostly 3 to 10 g | 3 gabout 3/4 tsp |
| SaltMost recipes use 6 to 8 g | 8 g |
| YeastMost recipes use 2.5 to 7 g | 6 g |
Bake475°F (245°C) for about 14 minutes.
Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g.
Every recipe, ingredient by ingredient
Each dot is a recipe, placed by grams of the ingredient per 100 g of flour (100% would be as much as the flour). The shaded band is the middle half of recipes and the line is the median.
Water
median 63% · most 60 to 72%
A moderately wet dough; the steam from its water, in a very hot oven or pan, is what puffs the pocket.
Each dot is up to 3 recipes. range 46 to 95%
Oil
median 4.3% · most 2.4 to 6.7%
A little olive oil softens the bread.
Each dot is up to 2 recipes. range 0 to 12% · 17% use none
Sugar
median 0.8% · 30% use none
A pinch of sugar or honey for the yeast.
Each dot is up to 4 recipes. range 0 to 6.7% · those that use some, mostly 0.8 to 2.5%
Salt
median 1.9% · most 1.4 to 2.1%
About 1.5 to 2%.
Each dot is up to 3 recipes. range 0.8 to 3%
Yeast
median 1.4% · most 0.6 to 1.8%
Instant or active dry yeast.
Each dot is up to 2 recipes. range 0 to 3.8% · 6% use none
Where recipes disagree
Measured by how far apart the 25th and 75th percentile recipes are. The widest gaps are where the choice of recipe matters most.
- Sugar. 30% of recipes use no sugar, and the rest disagree too: the middle half of them add 0.8 to 2.5% of the flour weight.
- Yeast. The middle half of recipes use 0.6 to 1.8% of the flour weight in yeast, so a recipe at the 75th percentile has 3.0 times as much as one at the 25th.
Recipes agree most on water and salt: water 60 to 72%, salt 1.4 to 2.1% for the middle half.
Around the world
77 of the recipes come in 4 languages with enough of each to compare: English 45, French 15, German 9, Spanish 8.
- French recipes use 14% less water than English ones (60% against 70% of the flour weight).
What the words in titles mean
English recipes whose titles use a word, against the ones that do not. What recipe writers do when they pick the word, not proof that it makes the texture.
Recipes called “homemade” (15) use about the same amounts as the rest on every ingredient measured here.
The most-reviewed recipes
23 pita recipes have 50 or more reader ratings. A rating count says how many people rated a page, which follows its traffic more than its quality. Against the other 70, medians per 100 g of flour, compared within each language:
On no ingredient do the most-reviewed recipes differ from the rest by more than chance would explain.
50+ ratings (23)the rest (70)middle half of all
Waterthe most-reviewed recipes 65% vs the rest 63%
Oilthe most-reviewed recipes 5% vs the rest 3.9%
Sugarthe most-reviewed recipes 1.7% vs the rest 0.8%
Saltthe most-reviewed recipes 2% vs the rest 1.9%
Yeastthe most-reviewed recipes 1.6% vs the rest 1.4%
Most reviewed
- Homemade Pita Bread Recipe - Quick and Simple Recipe · archanaskitchen.com4.9 from 6,428 ratings
- Pita Brot · gutekueche.at · German4.5 from 4,050 ratings
- Whole Wheat Pita Bread Recipe · archanaskitchen.com4.9 from 2,218 ratings
- Pan Árabe · cocina-casera.com · Spanish4.1 from 1,073 ratings
- Gekruide pita broodjes bakken · rutgerbakt.nl · Dutch4.0 from 675 ratings
Oven temperature and time
65 of 93 recipes state an oven temperature, and 36% of those bake at 475°F (245°C). The middle half bake at 475 to 500°F. The other 28 do not say.
- 475°F24 recipes
- 500°F20 recipes
- 450°F8 recipes
- 400°F3 recipes
- 425°F3 recipes
- 550°F3 recipes
81 recipes state a bake time. Taking the middle of any stated range (“55 to 65 minutes” counts as 60), the median is 14 minutes and the middle half bake 6 to 25 minutes.
Temperature and time together
The single most common pairing is 500°F for 5 to 10 minutes, with 13 of the 58 recipes that state both.
Recipes to start with
Closest to the typical batch
Nearest the median on every ingredient at once.
- Pita – griechisches Fladenbrot · emmikochteinfach.dewater 64% · oil 5%
- Pita Brot · backenmachtgluecklich.dewater 66% · oil 2.7%
- Pain pita · bettybossi.chwater 71% · oil 2.7%
- Pita-Brot · bettybossi.chwater 71% · oil 2.7%
- Pane pita · chiarapassion.comwater 63% · oil 4.2%
Most water
- Lebanese Pita · foodnetwork.comwater 95% · oil 0%
- Lebanese Pita Bread Recipe · amiraspantry.comwater 93% · oil 1.8%
- Pitabrot · gutekueche.atwater 90% · oil 3.4%
Least water
- Pita Bread with Minced Meat · baketotheroots.dewater 46% · oil 11%
- Pão sírio · tudogostoso.com.brwater 47% · oil 5.4%
- Pão sirio · receitasdecomida.com.brwater 47% · oil 5.4%
Go deeper
- DiscoverEvery recipe plotted on any two ratios.
- CalculatorStart from the typical recipe, move the ratios, get grams.
- IngredientsWhich ingredients recipes use, and the choices they make.
- RatiosWhich ingredients rise and fall together.
- TimelineRecipes by publication year and how the typical one shifted.
- Around the WorldThe typical recipe in each language, and where French, German or Italian recipes part from English ones.
- All RecipesEvery recipe, sortable, with a page each.
- ClustersThe styles the numbers fall into.
- Decision TreeA few questions that narrow the recipes to the ones you want.
Top sources
- 3baking-sense.com
- 3chainbaker.com
- 3cuisineaz.com
- 3ichkoche.at
- 3jamiegeller.com
- 3kingarthurbaking.com
- 3ptitchef.com
- 3receiteria.com.br
- 2annarecetasfaciles.com
- 2archanaskitchen.com
- 2bettybossi.ch
- 2chefsimon.com
In 7 languages: English 45, French 15, German 9, Spanish 8, Italian 6, Portuguese 6, Dutch 4. Lines in other languages are read in their own units and words, and each recipe page links to the original. 69 sites in all. No site contributes more than 12 recipes.
How the numbers are made
Every ingredient line is converted to grams and grouped (butter and oil count as fat; white, brown and liquid sweeteners as sugar), then divided by the flour weight. That baker's percentage is the only comparison that holds across recipes of different sizes.
98% of the 581 ingredient lines got a weight. 42% of those weights were printed by the source; the rest were converted from cups and spoons with standard densities, so treat single recipes as close, not exact. Frosting, glaze, streusel and other toppings are listed on each recipe page but left out of the percentages.
A recipe outside the plausible range for any ingredient is left out rather than allowed to stretch every chart; it is usually a different dish with the same name or a misread line. Of the pages fetched, 446 were left out: 182 with a title that names a different dish, 175 with no flour, or none that could be weighed, 74 outside the plausible range on some ingredient (water 25, salt 20, yeast 14, oil 13, sugar 2), 11 too many lines without an amount, and 4 a listing page, not a recipe page.
Every recipe page links to the original, which is where the method is. Recipe Lab does not republish instructions or photos.