Levantine · Bread
Ka'ak al-Quds
- Intermediate
- 40 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with toasted, nutty warmth throughout, a sweet edge rounding the corners, ending saline and clean.
Ingredients
- 500 g strong white flour
- 300 ml warm whole milk
- 7 g instant yeast
- 30 g caster sugar
- 10 g fine salt
- 40 ml olive oil
- 120 g white sesame seeds
- 60 ml dibs enab (grape molasses)
- 60 ml warm water
- za'atar and boiled eggs, to serve
Equipment
Sheet pan
The skills inside
Kneading doughShaping by handProofing: the rise before the ovenThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · sesame
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt, pour in the warm milk and oil, then knead 10 minutes until the dough pulls clean off the bowl and a stretched piece goes translucent before it tears. 10 min
- Divide into six, roll each to a rope about 40 cm long, join the ends and stretch the ring into a long oval with a hole you can put a fist through.
- Whisk the dibs into the warm water, dip each ring so both faces are wet, then press it into the sesame until no dough shows through.
- Prove the rings on lined trays until a fingertip dent springs back only halfway and the hole has closed to a slot.
- Bake at 230C (450F) for 12 to 14 minutes, until the sesame is toasted brown and the base sounds hollow when tapped. 14 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Kneading dough 57 recipes
- The work changed it: what began shaggy and rough is one smooth, cohesive mass, with nothing raggy hanging off it.
- The surface has gone satin and barely tacky, releasing cleanly from hands and board instead of leaving a trail.
- Worked to the point this dough asks for and no further: springy and elastic where structure is wanted, just brought together where tenderness is.
- Torn or cut open, the inside is uniform: no dry streaks, no unmixed pockets, no core of flour that never met the water.
- After its rest it rolls and shapes without snapping back. A dough that fights the pin needed more rest, not more force.
Where it goes wrong Sticking was fought with flour instead of technique or patience, stroke after stroke, until the dough had taken in far more than the formula asked; it turns tight and dry under the hands, and bakes dense however well everything else goes.
Proofing: the rise before the oven 78 recipes
- Judged on volume against the container rather than on the clock: visibly grown, and grown by roughly the amount the recipe describes.
- The poke test agrees: a floured fingertip pressed a centimetre in leaves a dent that springs back slowly and only part of the way. Straight back means it is not ready; no spring at all means it has gone.
- The surface is domed, smooth, and slightly sheened: not cratered, wrinkled, or collapsed, and not skinned over and dry from proofing uncovered.
- Handled, it feels alive and airy: light for its size, with bubbles visible under the skin.
- It springs in the oven: the piece lifts in the first minutes and the scores open. A shape that does not move at all was proofed past its point before it went in.
Where it goes wrong It was proofed to the clock in a kitchen colder or warmer than the recipe assumed: overproofed, it collapses as the blade touches it and bakes flat and dense with a sour edge; underproofed, it tears at the side and bakes tight.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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