Yemeni Kubaneh

A little over a week ago, I had some time on my hands, so I figured I'd look up a new bread.  I wanted something reasonably simple, but exotic, so I started my recipe search in Africa, then moved to Israel.

While perusing kosher recipes, I found this recipe for an overnight Yemenite bread.  It isn't African, and it isn't Israeli, per se, but it seemed reasonably simple, and the idea behind it was definitely exotic!

A bread which cooks at a low temperature overnight?

I had heard of cookies which sat in a cooling oven overnight to finish, and of course, my yogurt cultures overnight in a cold oven with the light on, but a bread?  Breads are supposed to be baked at high temperature, aren't they?  Hasn't that been the challenge of all bakers?

This I had to see!

Unfortunately, with one thing or another, and recognizing I needed about 5 hours between first mixing and bedtime, I wasn't able to try it out until last Saturday night.

The waiting was killing me . . .

Interestingly enough, the choice to make it Saturday night was rather appropriate.  Apparently this bread is made by many Jewish people on Friday evening, to be ready for their Sabbath on Saturday.  In some strict households, no cooking is done on the Sabbath, in keeping with the idea that no fire should be kindled on the Sabbath.  So to have a bread which is started before Sabbath starts and just cooked overnight (no fire being kindled, because it was already on), would be just the thing.  We are not Jewish, and we do not have the same kind of restrictions, but by cooking it Saturday night, it was ready for our Sabbath on Sunday morning.



At last!!

 Ingredients:

2 1/2 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1/3 cup lukewarm water (for the yeast)
3 Tablespoons sugar (to add while the yeast is dissolving)

3 Tablespoons honey or additional sugar (I used honey)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 to 6 ounces margarine or butter (That's 8 to 12 Tablespoons of margarine or butter.  I used 12 Tablespoons of butter.  This will be divided.)
3/4 cup very hot water
3 cups all-purpose flour (or more, as needed)
8 eggs in their shells (optional)

The original recipe includes directions for mixing by hand, very similar to what I've written here.

I mixed the ingredients as I normally would in my stand mixer.  First, dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water with the 3 Tablespoons of sugar.  In the stand mixer bowl, combine the remaining sugar, honey, salt, half the butter, and the 3/4 cup very hot water.  Stir until the sugar is dissolved and the butter has mostly melted.  Check the temperature to make sure it's not too hot, then add the yeast mixture.  (If you are concerned it might be too hot, add the first cup of flour, mix, then add the yeast mixture.)  Add the flour, cup by cup, and mix with the bread hook attachment.  Add more flour as necessary to get the dough to the stage where it will start to clean up the sides of the bowl, then gently tap bits of flour  to prevent the dough from sticking again while the bread hook kneads the dough for about 5 minutes.

After the dough has been kneaded, add a little oil, allow the hook to carry the dough around the bowl once or twice, then turn off the mixer.  Remove the bread hook, twirl the dough around to grease the bowl with the oil, and flip the dough upside down, so the oiled side is up.  Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and allow to rise for an hour or until nearly doubled in volume.

Leave the other half of the butter on the counter to soften it.  You'll want it to be very soft.

Because this recipe did not include eggs, I didn't think the rising time would be terribly long.  But I had forgotten that recipes with a lot of butter also take a long time to rise.  It took the entire hour mentioned in the recipe, and that was with the boost of the pellet stove!

After the first rise, punch down the dough and allow it to rise again for about another hour.  (Alternately, you can refrigerate it for 3 to 4 hours.)  Grease the pan or dish you intend to use and preheat the oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit.  The recipe called for a 2-quart dish, about 8x8x2, which I happened to have.

Whenever a recipe tells me to roll out or shape bread dough, it has always told me to do so on a lightly floured surface.  But this recipe was different.  Instead of flour, this recipe calls for oiling the prep surface and rolling pin.  (It was at this time I decided I'd better put on an apron.  Flour on my clothes comes out easily; a drop of oil can ruin them forever.)  I kept a little oil in a dish available to be able to refresh the prep surface if needed.



Shiny!

 Divide the dough into 8 portions.  Roll a portion into a rectangular shape.  (I realize nobody would learn the proper definiton of a rectangle by this particular piece of rolled dough, but you get the idea.)

Once the dough is rolled out, spread about 2 teaspoons of butter on to the surface, then roll it like a jelly roll.

Flatten the jelly roll using the knuckles of your hand, then spread about a teaspoon of butter on top.

Roll the flattened and buttered dough into spiral, like a cinnamon roll.

Place the rolled dough, spiral side up, in your greased pan or dish.  Repeat for the other seven portions of dough.

The recipe stated here, if you want to include eggs, it is time to wash the eggs and place them in the dish, but there was no indication exactly where they should be placed.  I realized there was absolutely no way I could fit eggs on top of this dough and still put a lid on the dish, and there was no room to place the eggs beside the dough, so I decided to forego the eggs this time.  (Subsequent research shows people do actually put the eggs on top of the dough, sort of sqeezed between the actual rolls.  However, I'm not sure all people add the eggs at this point in the recipe process.)

Create a false lid for the bread, using either greased paper or aluminum foil.  I used parchment paper, oiled and placed on top of the bread.

Because the recipe called for a tight-fitting lid, my lid was not terribly tight-fitting, I improvised, adding a layer of aluminum foil to help seal the cracks.

And into the oven it went!

After 3 hours, with the surface of the bread a golden brown, it was time to flip it.  If you have put eggs in with the bread, remove the eggs and replace them after the bread has been flipped.  (I wonder if some people just put the eggs in at this stage in the game.)

When I pulled the dish out of the oven, I immediately noticed a potential problem:  the bread looked as if it had been constricted in its rising by the lid of the dish.  In the center, where the lid was more raised, the bread had also raised high, while on the edges, it looked a little smushed.  I decided I probably should have used my deeper dish, even without cooking the eggs.

Placing one plate over the dish, I inverted the dish, allowing the bread to fall upside down on the plate.  I placed another plate on top of the upside-down bread, then flipped that. so the bread was right-side-up on the new plate.  Then I placed the dish upside down on the bread, and flipped the entire thing, so the bread was now upside-down in the original dish.

This presented a new problem.  Because the center of the bread had risen higher than the outside, the bread was now higher overall, preventing the lid from being able to come anywhere close to the dish.  Hmmmm.  I decided to do what I usually did when faced with a problem of an ill-fitting lid:  use aluminum foil.  I pulled out a large piece of aluminum foil and proceeded to wrap the entire dish, in the fashion of a baked potato . . . Well, at least, that was my impression.  I knew there was no other way I could make a "tight-fitting" lid with aluminum foil on this dish, because the dish had no rims.

Turn the oven down to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, place the pan or dish inside, and go to bed.  I am not sure exactly how long this bread should really be in the oven overnight, as the recipe did not specify.  Mine ended up cooking at this low temperature for about 8 hours.

I wasn't quite prepared for what I saw when I pulled the dish out of the oven at 7:30 am.

It didn't surprise me too terribly much that it was brown on the surface.  What did surprise me was the fact the brown color was carried completely throughout the bread.

What kind of a chemical reaction had taken place here?!  I have no idea.  Is this what happens when butter is cooked a long time?  Would it have happened this way if I had used margarine?  Perhaps it is because I added honey when the option was available, instead of more sugar.  Perhaps there is a bit of carmelization going on.  Perhaps . . . I really don't know.



The original top is on the top again!


The basic texture when the bread was torn somewhat resembled a croissant, but much more moist and less flaky.  (Hardly surprising, with all that butter cooking in an enclosed space.)  The flavor was also very, very buttery, as I expected.

I am not used to eating foods with such a high butter content, so it felt very rich to me--almost too rich.  Then I reread the recipe and noticed the bread should be served with sugar or peppery tomato sauce.  Since the bread comes from the Middle East, I figured honey might be a good alternative, as well.  After some experimentation, I found that either sugar sprinkled on the bread or honey spread on the bread made all the difference.  The former added a delightful touch of sweetness, while the latter lent a taste reminiscent of honey butter.

The Junior Taste Tester took a couple of bites of the bread and decided she didn't like it.  The Senior Master Kitchen Helper ate some, decided she liked it, ate some more, and decided she didn't like it.  The Master Kitchen Helper, who is my "foodie", was the only daughter who ended up liking it enough to eat more later on, but most of the kids decided it was just too buttery.

My husband's jaw dropped when I told him this.  "Too buttery?" he exclaimed.  "There is no such thing!"

He loved the bread.  He loved the texture and the taste, especially with honey.  In his opinion, it improved throughout the day, despite the instruction to serve the bread warm, fresh from the oven.  He thought it was wonderful dipped in his Pero drink, which, he figured, would be something the Middle East people might do with their coffee.

Because of the color, I was convinced I had done something wrong, despite my husband's insistence that it was perfect, so I did some more research.  None of the pictures I found showed a bread which was brown through and through, until I stumbled on this YouTube video . . .  See their Kubaneh?  It is brown all the way through!  (They also have a few eggs.)

I will make it again, but this time, I will use a cast iron Dutch oven placed in the oven, both to allow for space to add the eggs and to more fully accomplish the goal of having a tight-fitting lid during the cooking process.  It is tempting to try to reduce the butter to the lower amount suggested in the recipe, but I think my husband would not appreciate my doing that.

And who knows what will happen next time!  This is, after all, an adventure.