Bağaça

Leavened with a chickpea ferment started half a day ahead, not with yeast.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (butter).

Ingredients

the chickpea ferment

• 100 g dried chickpeas, cracked or coarsely crushed
• 300 ml warm water
• 1 tablespoon plain flour

the dough

• 700 g plain flour
• 120 g butter, softened
• 100 g tahini
• 100 g sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground mastic
• 8 g salt
• warm water, as needed

to finish

• 40 g butter, melted
• 60 g sesame seeds
• 60 g peanuts or almonds, chopped

Method

1. IT IS LEAVENED WITH A CHICKPEA FERMENT STARTED HALF A DAY AHEAD, not with yeast, and that is the thing the whole pastry is built on. Cracked dried chickpeas are left in warm water with a spoonful of flour for twelve hours in a warm place, until the water is cloudy, smells sour and is working. That liquid is the raising agent. It gives a slower, softer rise than baker's yeast and a distinctly different flavour -- faintly sour and nutty rather than bready -- and because it is weak it needs the long rest the method gives it. Substituting dried yeast produces a perfectly good tahini bun and loses the one thing that makes this what it is.
2. THE FERMENT HAS TO BE KEPT WARM OR IT WILL NOT START. Around 30°C, wrapped or in a warm cupboard, for twelve hours. Left in a cold kitchen it simply sits there and the dough will not rise at all -- and unlike yeast there is no quick fix once the dough is mixed.
3. THE TAHINI AND BUTTER BOTH GO IN THE DOUGH, NOT ON IT. A hundred grams of tahini and a hundred and twenty of butter worked through seven hundred grams of flour. That quantity of fat is why the thing is dense and rich and keeps so well, and it is also why it is not laminated or spiralled: the fat is distributed through the crumb rather than between layers.
4. THE MASTIC AND CINNAMON ARE THE AROMA AND BOTH ARE SMALL. Half a teaspoon of ground mastic, a teaspoon of cinnamon. Mastic in quantity turns bitter and faintly medicinal; at this level it gives the resinous pine note that carries the whole pastry.
5. IT IS PRESSED OUT BY HAND INTO FLAT ROUNDS AND BUTTERED AGAIN BEFORE THE TOPPING. Shaped with the palms on a cool surface to about two centimetres, brushed with melted butter, and only then the sesame and chopped nuts pressed on. Butter first or the topping does not hold.
6. The cracked chickpeas, warm water and 1 tablespoon of flour mixed in a jar and left somewhere WARM for 12 HOURS, until cloudy and sour-smelling.
7. The liquid STRAINED OFF and the chickpeas discarded.
8. The flour, sugar, cinnamon, mastic and salt mixed, then the softened butter and tahini rubbed through.
9. The chickpea liquid added, plus warm water as needed, to make a soft dough.
10. Kneaded 12 MINUTES and left to rise 3 HOURS -- it will rise slowly and will not double.
11. Divided into 8 and each PRESSED OUT BY HAND to a flat round about 2 cm thick.
12. Set on lined trays and rested 45 MINUTES.
13. Brushed with MELTED butter, then the sesame and chopped nuts pressed on.
14. Baked at 180°C for 25 to 30 MINUTES, until deep golden.
15. TESTED: the crumb should be soft and close, not airy. No rise at all means the ferment never started.
16. Cooled on a rack. Keeps 4 to 5 days.

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 Turkey · All recipes