Friday, June 16, 2017

Bake a purse! BBB in June


Another month with another Middle Eastern recipe for the Bread Baking Babes to bake; thanks Karen ("Bake my day!") for this lovely choice. The fun bread shape looks like a purse and is meant to carry around after buying it from a street cart in Lebanon that sells these. You can bake them yourself and please feel free to parade in your house and/or street! Bake these in a weekend and eat them for dinner or take them on a picnic! Bake with us, taste, post about them en sent your details and findings to Karen (bakemyday(at)gmail(dot)com) and become our Bread Baking Buddy!! Enter before the 30th of this month!

Kaak bread (a Lebanese bread with sesame seeds)
(makes 6 large Kaak)
(PRINT recipe) 

dough:
235 g milk
230 g water
2 TBsp olive oil
1 ½ TBsp sugar
1 ½ tsp salt
1 TBsp instant dry yeast
135 g whole wheat flour
490 gr all purpose flour, you may need a little more, but don’t add too much flour
Topping:
1 egg for egg wash
1 TBsp sesame seeds per kaak
You will also need lined baking sheets
Mix all the dough ingrdients in a standmixer bowl and knead it until souple dough. What you'll be looking for is a malleable non-sticky dough.
Shaping; divide dough into 5 parts of 200 g (or make smaller ones about 100 g each) and ball up. The last part of dough will be smaller, but you add all the cut out circles to that one, so it’ll be about the same size. Let rest to relax and using a dough pin roll each ball into a circle approx. 18 cm diam., about 1 1/2 cm.
Place the shaped breads on lined baking sheets, be careful not to stretch the dough. Use a large cookie cutter to cut out a circle near the top to form the "handle". and loosely cover to rise another 25-30 minutes. Add all the cut-out circles to the last smaller piece of dough and shape this one like a purse without cutting a whole (make a hole with your finger and carefully open it up. Or do it as it’s done in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdxMY-53pMU )

Egg wash the breads, sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Bake for ±15-18 minutes or until golden and puffed in a pre-heated oven 200-220°C. I think they will benefit from a bit of steam in your oven. Use your preferred method; either ice cubes, boiling water in a heated pan... bake on a stone...

Let them cool on a wire rack. You can eat them like they are or make a horizontal slit in the bottom part of the purse, which you can fill with whatever your fancy.
We stuffed them with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and some vegetable "sausages"

8 comments:

hobby baker Kelly said...

Oh, they look wonderful filled! And I like the cookie cutter handle method just as well as the rope method. Beautiful purses!

Karen said...

Love yours. So perfectly shaped! This was a great bread, and your sandwich with a handle is so fun!

Elizabeth said...

Oh my goodness! You are brilliant to display one of the breads carried as a handbag! (or is it a designer lunch box??) ...very haute couture!

The sandwich looks delicious!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Very different look with the cut out for the opening ... I like them both.
And your sandwich! Wow that just looks fabulous. Designer lunch box indeed!

Cathy (Bread Experience) said...

I love the color of your Kaak and the photos are gorgeous! A sandwich with a handle! How cool! This was such a fun bread to make.

Karen Baking Soda said...

Ooooh look at those! She did it again! What a gorgous shaping and coloring on your breads Lien, amazing! Love your style of filling as well, yum!!

Judy said...

What lovely, puffy breads! Mine were pretty flat, but still tasted just fine.

Rowena said...

This is brilliant - I will be making them this week!