As I have mentioned before, both me and Duncan have a soft spot for a particular type of Turkish bread – flat, fluffy loaf traditionally eaten during Ramadan. Sometimes, it’s topped with sesame seeds, sometimes with pul biber (Turkish chilli), either way it is delicious.
We got hooked on it when we used to live in North-East London next door to a Turkish bakery. They sold these amazing Turkish breads, straight from the oven, for 80p each and their tantalising smell made it impossible to go past without buying some! It’s fabulous when it’s still warm and fresh, but even a day or two later it tastes delicious cut into thin strips, lightly toasted on a griddle pan and served with a selection of mezze dishes to dip it into.
Since we no longer live in London, now I have to twist Duncan’s arm to make us Turkish bread now and again. To be honest, he is not that resistant to it as this is one of the easiest breads you’ll make.
It requires no kneading! You cannot believe it? I was a bit sceptical too, but try it – proof is in the erm…bread. It’s light and airy, full of air pockets and so irresistible that you’ll wanna eat the whole loaf at one sitting. Just a word of warning, don’t do it if you intend to go running an hour later. This last bit of info is NOT BASED on personal experience at all:).
- 250 g / 2 cups bread flour
- 7 g / 0.25 oz / 2¼ tsp instant dried yeast
- 200 ml / ¾ cup + 4 tsp warm water
- 2 tsp caster/fine sugar
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 15 ml / 1 tbsp olive oil, for glazing
- handful of white and black sesame seeds
- Mix the flour, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl.
- Create a small well in the middle of the flour and add the yeast. Pour the water into the well and mix everything together with your hands. At this stage the dough should be very wet and fairly hard to manage.
- Cover the mixing bowl with cling film and leave to prove for about one hour (or until it has doubled in size).
- Flour a work surface and tip the proven dough out on to the work surface making sure to add lots of flour to avoid sticking. Shape the dough into a flat circle (about 2-3 cm high).
- Place the dough on a olive oil-greased baking tray. Cover the dough with a tea towel and leave to prove for another 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 250° C / 480° F in the last 20 minutes of this time.
- Dent the top of the dough by first drawing a rough inner circle (with your fingertips) of about 3 cm from the edge of the bread. Then fill in the centre of the inner circle with criss-crossed diagonal lines about 2-3 cm apart (see 2nd picture in this recipe to get the idea).
- Using a pastry brush, coat the top of the bread with olive oil. Sprinkle with black and white sesame seeds and press the seeds in as far as you can to make sure that they stay in the bread.
- Bake the bread for 8 minutes at 250° C / 480° F and then turn the oven down to 200° C / 390° F and bake for another 5 minutes (or until golden brown).
I am not sure it will, it will overproof I am pretty sure. You could, however, mix the dough up the night before, let it proof in the fridge overnight - the cold slows down the proofing process - shape and bake the next morning. Hope this helps! x Ania
Yes, I am afraid that you are right. Gluten present in gluten-rich strong flour is what gives it structure and its fluffiness. You can probably achieve good enough results with a good gluten-free flour mix, a binder or two and some food chemistry but that would need a separate recipe (I may get to it at some point) x Ania
Yes, it theory, but I worry that garlic may burn in the oven so you may want to brush it on for the last five minutes. Hope this helps! Ania
I guess in this situation you simply have to make do. Bread (also known as strong) flour has a much higher gluten content (look for protein per 100 g on the packaging) than plain flour, typically 12-16 g vs 8-10 g. High gluten content helps the dough to rise so yes, you can use plain flour but you may not get as much rise as you would otherwise. Hope this helps and you'll enjoy it anyway. x Ania
I have not tried using any other leavener than yeast, but I personally don't think that baking soda will give you a bread as fluffy as this as it doesn't cause fermentation, which is what produces these big air bubbles inside the loaf. I may be wrong though so feel free to experiment. Ania
Glad to hear that you enjoy this bread and make it on a regular basis! As for the browning, there could be a few reasons. One of them being that your oven runs a little low - perhaps it's worth trying not decreasing your oven temperature as much (or at all) at the end. You could also try glazing it with a mixture of oil (2 tsp), soy milk (2 tsp) and maple syrup or sugar (1 tsp) for the last 5 minutes? Hope this helps! Ania
I think so (although it's a savoury, not sweet type of bread), but I've only just ever made it plain. Hope it works out well! Ania
Yes, in theory, but it will produce a different (coarser) texture and is likely to require different amount of water (more is my guess) for correct gluten development so some experimentation on your part may be necessary. Hope this helps! Ania
Not including passive (waiting) time in the prep time is a pretty standard convention for recipe writers, which is what I follow too. The waiting time is clearly stated in the method and it is not my intention to mislead anyone. All bread recipes that use yeast require a substantial proofing time so I think that people expect there to be some waiting time during which yeast needs to do its thing. Hope this makes sense! Ania
Thank you, I'm delighted to hear that you like it! I don't have any nutritional info at present, I'm afraid but I will soon be launching a new version of my website, which will have that information. Please bear with me. Ania
I am in India. I recently bought a Pizza Oven of brand G3 Ferrari. Its a stone oven heating at top and bottom with 600 watt elements on both top and bottom and goes up to 380/390 deg celcius or 725 deg F. This Pide ramazan bread recipe is very interesting and I want to try baking itin my Pizza oven. The oven has a basic thermostat to control temperature but does not have a thermometer so to say to give exact temperature for baking. Having said that I can measure temperature on the stone using a IR thermometer.
My question is can such a bread be done at higher temperature. How sensitive is final product to temperature. Higher temperature is an advantage or a disadvantage for such bread.
The oven can be opened to see the appearance of the bread and assess its doneness.....experience can eventually allow such a nice bread to be made proficiently but should my starting point be a slow bake at low or fast bake at high/higher.
I have not made these in a pizza oven, but as you can see in the instructions the bread requires high temperatures of 250° C - 200° C so as long as that's achievable in your oven, I am sure it will work just fine. Good luck! Ania
Also when is guacamole not guacamole? When it's a salad! I tried to make some recently and waited until everything else was done before splitting my avocados. They were rotten! So plan B, I added a tin of tuna and ot was awesome!
Thanks for any tips.
Nosheen
With regards to the amount of water needed, this can happen as different flours (including different brands of the same type of flour) can have different absorbency so that's not a big deal, good thinking on your feet! As for the density, this would be to do with yeast, I imagine. Are you absolutely sure the type of yeast you used is 'instant' and not active dry yeast for example? I have made that mistake before when living in Greece! The first can be added straight into the recipe, the other requires prior activation in liquid. This is my best guess. Let me know and I'll be happy to trouble-shoot with you. Ania
I'm excited that you plan to make it and I hope you will love it as much as I do. Dips-wise, sure. I tend to serve it with beautiful Syrian pepper and walnut dip - muhammara, baba ganoush,hummus, beetroot hummus and shop-bought pickles. Hope this helps!
PS: these are not strictly speaking Turkish dips but they all hail from the cuisines of the Mediterranean and all their flavour combinations are staple in Turkish cuisine too.
I have not tried myself but if you would like I recommend 50% wholemeal and 50% regular. Wholemeal is coarse so the bread won't have its characteristic springiness and softness. Hope this helps! Ania
Warmest wishes for an amazing 2021
Thank you for your kind words about this recipe, I am glad you and your kids enjoyed it. I'm delighted to hear that you decided to give vegan lifestyle a try and I hope it will help your health issue and you will never look back (that's what happened to me 6 years ago now). There is plenty of whole food recipes on my blog, please have a browse and I'm sure you will find something that features ingredients you enjoy. Alternatively, Forks Over Knives is a good website for a more extreme (no-oil, no-sugar, plant only wholefoods) diet intervention - they have lots of healthy 100% vegan recipes. Hope this helps! Ania
Thank you for posting the recipe and one day I will find that time but please provide a consumer driven synopsis that assumes all level of bread making expertise 😁
I just made this today and it was delicious. Thanks for the super easy recipe. One question though, I made sure to add olive oil on top and even left it in the oven for an extra 10 min but the top of it didn’t turn golden brown- what did I do wrong?