Low-Carb Pita Pockets or Naan Bread (LC, SF)

 

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups vital wheat gluten  
1  cup oat flour   
¼ cup wheat bran 

½ cup golden flax seed meal

¼ cup oat fiber
1/2 tsp acacia gum (optional) 
2 tsp sugar (for the yeast) 
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp. melted butter or oil of choice
4 tsp active dry yeast
1 to 1 ½  cups warm water

 

Preparation:

In an upright mixer with the dough attachment in place, place all ingredients except water.

Begin mixing and slowly add water until a dough ball forms. You may need more or less water - it depends mostly on your climate. Start with 1 cup.  The dough should be every so slightly sticky, but not wet after 2 minutes of mixing. If it’s too dry, add more water.

Knead for another 4-5  minutes then turn out into an oiled bowl. Oil top of dough ball and cover with plastic wrap or put the bowl in a large plastic bag.
Set in a warm place to rise about 1 hour or until double in size.

Turn the risen dough out of the countertop and cut 12 portions. Fold them inside out a couple of times, then roll out the dough into about 8 inch rounds with a rolling pin, about 1/8th of an inch thick. The dough will want to pull together into a smaller shape, that’s ok. Just roll them all out, then go over them again. Let them rest for about 10 minutes.

 

 

While your dough is resting, place a pizza stone or an inverted heavy cookie sheet on the middle rack of your oven and preheat to 475 F.  Once temperature is reached, let the stone/cookie sheet warm up for a further 5 minutes or so.

Spray the stone with a mist of water (or splash on some water at the bottom of your oven) and close oven door for 30 seconds. We want to get a warm and steamy environment.

Get ready to work quickly.

Open the oven and place two pitas at the time on the hot stone/inverted cookie sheet. Bake for  2 to 2 ½ minutes until puffed up in the center.
Flip pita over with some tongs and cook for another 30 - 40 seconds on the other side, then remove to a wire rack.
Spray stone/cookie sheet again and repeat process until all pitas are baked.

 

Yours didn’t puff up? Never fear! Just cut them in half and run a knife between the layers and gently carve out a pocket. They tend to come apart quite easily!

 

 

The pitas are pretty large, so I usually cut them in half and fill both sides independently.

 

{This is half a pita bread filled!}

 

If you are making Naan Bread, roll your rounds out a bit thicker, about 1/4 inch or so. Preheat the oven as above, but only to 425 F. Preheat a cookie sheet with the oven like above. Once up to temperature, place as many dough rounds as you can easily fit on the cookie sheet, then splash some water on the bottom of the oven and close the oven door. Bake for about 3 minutes, then flip them over, spray with water again  and bake for another 2 - 3 minutes until golden brown.

 

Here’s the texture of the bread:

 

 

This dough also lends itself nicely for thick or thin crust pizza and the breads or slightly pre-baked pizza bottom rounds freeze well!

 

Makes 12.

137 g of carbs, with 57 g of fiber, so a net carb count of 80 for the entire recipe. That makes it 6.66 g of net carbs per pita/naan bread ( at 11.41 g of carbs, with 4.75 g of fiber.)