Taftan

The dough is enriched with milk, yoghurt and eggs, which is what sets it apart from the plain flatbreads.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (milk), dairy (yoghurt).

Ingredients

• 600 g plain white flour
• 200 ml milk, warmed
• 150 g plain yoghurt
• 2 eggs
• 7 g fast-action yeast
• 10 g salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads, ground and steeped in 2 tablespoons hot water, optional
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, optional
• 2 tablespoons nigella or sesame seeds, to decorate

Method

1. THE DOUGH IS ENRICHED WITH MILK, YOGHURT AND EGGS, WHICH IS WHAT SETS IT APART FROM THE PLAIN FLATBREADS. Its article gives the composition in one line -- a leavened flour bread made with refined flour, milk, yoghurt and eggs, baked in a clay oven, sometimes flavoured with saffron and a little cardamom and sometimes decorated. Every other Iranian bread on this site is flour, water, salt and yeast. Three enrichments change the bread completely: the fat and egg make it soft and close rather than chewy and open, the yoghurt's acid tenderises it, and the milk sugars brown it far faster, so it bakes shorter and cooler than any of the others here.
2. IT IS REFINED WHITE FLOUR, NOT WHOLEMEAL. Its article specifies refined flour. With this much enrichment, wholemeal makes a heavy, slightly gritty bread.
3. THE MILK IS WARMED AND THE EGGS ARE AT ROOM TEMPERATURE. Cold enrichments slow the yeast badly in a dough this rich. Warm the milk to blood heat and take the eggs out of the fridge first.
4. IT IS A SOFTER, STICKIER DOUGH THAN IT LOOKS AND IT IS KNEADED LONGER. Twelve minutes. Fat shortens gluten strands, so an enriched dough needs more work to come together than a lean one.
5. IT PROVES SLOWLY AND TWICE. An hour and a half for the first rise, then shaped and a further forty minutes. Richer doughs are always slower.
6. IT IS SHAPED ROUND AND DIMPLED, NOT ROLLED THIN. A disc a centimetre and a half thick, pressed out by hand and dimpled all over with the fingertips.
7. IT BAKES COOLER AND SHORTER THAN THE PLAIN BREADS. 210C for twelve to fourteen minutes. At the 250C the pebble bread wants, the milk and egg in this would be dark before the middle was cooked.
8. THE SAFFRON AND CARDAMOM ARE OPTIONAL AND THE DECORATION IS EXPECTED. Its article allows both flavourings and notes the bread may be decorated. Saffron water brushed on before the seeds go over.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Iran · All recipes