Köylü Pastası

Four ingredients and no sugar in the dough — it is sweetened only by what goes on top.

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

Ingredients

the dough

• 500 g plain flour
• 200 g butter, softened
• 200 g thick yoghurt
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt

to finish

• 1 egg yolk, for glazing
• 60 g walnuts, chopped
• 3 tablespoons icing sugar, for dusting

Method

1. FOUR INGREDIENTS AND NO SUGAR IN THE DOUGH. Egg, flour, yoghurt and butter -- that is the whole list, and the plainness is what the name is about. Nothing sweet goes in: the dough itself tastes of butter and the sourness of yoghurt, and the only sugar is what is dusted over at the end. That makes it the plain one in a group of cakes that are otherwise sweet, and it is why it can be eaten with tea in the afternoon without being a dessert exactly.
2. THE YOGHURT IS THE ONLY LIQUID AND IT MUST BE THICK. Two hundred grams of strained or set yoghurt, not runny. It provides the moisture, the acid that works the baking powder and the slight sourness that is the flavour. Thinned with milk or water, the dough becomes slack and the thing bakes flat.
3. THE BUTTER IS CREAMED BUT THE FLOUR IS FOLDED. Butter beaten soft, eggs and yoghurt in, then flour and baking powder folded through until it just comes together. Worked further, the gluten develops and this goes from short to chewy -- which is the main failure, and it looks like underbaking from outside.
4. IT IS PRESSED INTO ONE TRAY AND SCORED BEFORE BAKING. Not rolled and cut into biscuits: pressed out level into a lined tray about two centimetres deep and scored into squares or diamonds right through with a knife. The score lines open as it rises and give the edges that make each piece.
5. IT IS CUT ON THE SCORE LINES WHILE WARM. Out of the oven, left fifteen minutes, then cut through on the lines and dusted. Cold, the whole slab has set and the knife tears it; hot, the pieces slump.
6. The butter beaten until soft and creamy.
7. The eggs and the THICK yoghurt beaten in.
8. The flour, baking powder and salt FOLDED in only until it comes together. No sugar.
9. Pressed level into a lined tray about 2 cm deep.
10. SCORED right through into squares with a knife.
11. Brushed with egg yolk and the chopped walnuts scattered over and pressed in.
12. Baked at 180°C for 30 to 35 MINUTES, until golden and firm to a light press.
13. Left 15 MINUTES, then CUT THROUGH on the score lines while WARM.
14. Dusted with icing sugar -- the only sugar in it.
15. TESTED: the crumb should be short and crumbling. Chewy means the flour was worked rather than folded.
16. Keeps 4 days in a tin.

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