This soft and pillowy Turkish bread has a hint of sweetness on the crust from honey and tons of sesame and nigella seeds. The no-knead, super tender, fluffy, and delicious Turkish flatbread recipe is an adaptation of the Ramazan pidesi that you don’t want to miss.
I learned this Turkish bread recipe from a Turkish friend. It is close to an authentic Turkish bread, Ramazan pidesi which has a darker crust and firmer crumbs. Whereas this Turkish bread recipe will yield a very soft crumb and crust with a mild hint of sweetness which you will not find in a traditional pidesi.
Most popular Turkish bread:
There are a lot of flatbreads from turkey that you might want to try. Starting from the unleavened Yufka to the soft and leavened Bazlama. The most popular one is certainly the pita bread. Pide ekmek and Ramazan pidesi are the other two types of leavened flatbreads from turkey.
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🫓 Why will you love this Turkish bread recipe?
- Super soft and tender crumbs.
- The crust also has a soft texture with a hint of sweetness.
- This is a no-knead recipe. Yes, you do not need a stand mixer for making this bread.
- This homemade Turkish bread stays fluffy and soft for longer.
- This is an egg-free recipe and can be easily adapted into a vegan Turkish bread recipe.
- A quick and easy flatbread recipe that can be served in multiple ways.
- Approachable. All ingredients must already be sitting in your pantry, so just grab them and get started.
🍶 Ingredients and substitutions
Bread flour
Bread flour is ideal. It gives a great extensibility to the dough and the bread leavens up way better if made with bread flour. You can surely use all-purpose flour to make this Turkish bread. But do reduce the water by 20 grams if using the all-purpose flour. It has lesser protein and to keep it manageable keep hydration around 65 percent or so.
Whole milk
Whole milk makes this Turkish bread soft. You can surely use 2 percent fat. You can also substitute milk with buttermilk. It kind of changes the flavor as well. Turkish bread bazlama is made with yogurt.
Hydration ( Water)
Keep the hydration in a manageable zone. Anything around 70 percent for the bread flour and 65 percent for the all-purpose flour. Please note that the hydration includes the water and milk both.
Sugar
Sugar is required to provide instant food for the yeast. Since flour takes time to break carbs into sugar after initiation of fermentation, sugar acts as a readily available food for yeast activity.
Salt
Nothing tastes good without salt. You can use kosher, sea salt, or normal table salt.
Instant yeast
I have used instant yeast for leavening the Turkish bread. It makes the recipe way quicker than dry yeast. If you are going to be using the instant dry yeast, you will have to bloom it in warm milk or warm water mixed with sugar first. Instant yeast does not require blooming and acts very fast.
You can also leaven this bread with a sourdough starter. You can use a ripe sourdough starter or the discard. Follow the sourdough naan recipe.
🔪Procedure to make Turkish bread
Step 1 Make the dough
In a large bowl combine the flour with all the dry ingredients viz. salt, sugar, and instant yeast. Use a whisk to combine them evenly.
Now add the wet ingredients, which are nothing but water and milk. I like to use the back of a ladle to combine and form a dough ball. Then I like to go in with my hands and combine until no dry patch of flour is left. Then clean the sides of a bowl and cover the bowl with a cling wrap or kitchen towel. Let the dough rest and ferment while undergoing autolyse.
This process is called fermentolyse. This should take 45 minutes. Now go in with wet hands and stretch and fold the dough while deflating any air build-up. Turn the bowl 45 degree and repeat. Keep repeating until you have done enough stretching and folding to tighten the dough and form a round ball. Then lift the dough by placing your hand under it and flip.
If you are using instant dry yeast, do not forget to bloom it in warm milk before adding it to the flour.
Step 2 Bulk proof the dough
Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and let the dough bulk-proof for 1 hour or until it becomes double in volume. If you are using instant dry yeast, this would take longer than that. Also, this process is highly temperature-dependent, and the total time required for bulk proofing will depend on the ambient temperature in your kitchen.
So always go by the bulk and volume increase in the dough and not the timeline.
Step 3 Dividing the dough and Shaping
When the dough becomes fuller and almost doubled up in volume, transfer it onto a flour-dusted work surface. Gather the edges to form a round. Then divide it into two equal parts using a bench scraper. You can simply eyeball it or use a weighing machine to divide them into two equal parts.
Then roll them into individual rounds and let cover. Let them rest for 20 minutes while keeping them covered with a kitchen towel.
Then take one round and use your fingers to press and spread the dough to create a round-shaped flatbread. Lift it and place it on a parchment-lined baking tray. I also dust it with some cornmeal. You can simply use flour. Repeat the process with the second round. When it is rolled into a disk of about one-fourth of an inch thickness, gently lift it and place it on the baking tray.
Step 4 Proofing and Topping
Now we need to cover the shaped Turkish bread with a kitchen towel and let them proof for 40 minutes or until they become fuller in volume and puff up a bit.
Then you go in with your fingers and press it down around its corners marking a circular periphery. Then make the internal pattern of your choice. I made 4 parallel lines and then made 4 more parallel lines placed diagonally to the previous lines so that diamond shapes are formed on the Turkish bread.
You can make whatever design you like. The key purpose is to deflate the dough and get rid of any excess air build-up in the bread. We do not want it to puff up like a pita bread. This bread does not have pockets but just tender crumbs like Ramazan pidesi.
Now in a bowl combine room-temperature heavy cream and honey. Mix well and brush on the top of the Turkish bread. It gives the crust a shine and allows the toppings to adhere well to the bread. Now, for toppings, you can add whatever you like. I have used the traditional toppings which are sesame seeds and nigella seeds.
I am using white sesame seeds, you can use brown sesame seeds. You can also use black sesame seeds, but they would just blend with the nigella seeds and not give the color contrast that you get with white or brown seeds.
Step 5 Baking the Turkish bread
Preheat the oven to 400 oF and place a small empty baking pan on the lower shelf. When it is ready, add 3-4 ice cubes to the tray and place the baking sheet with Turkish bread on the upper shelf. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until it turns golden brown.
When the Turkish bread is done, remove it from the oven and brush the top with butter or olive oil to keep the crust soft for longer.
🍽How to serve Turkish bread
This fluffy Turkish bread makes a great side bread. Serve as a side dish for dinner along with soups and stews. Use it to scoop the curries or dips like hummus and baba ghanoush. Top it with cheese, sauce, and veggies to make pide (Turkish flatbread pizza). Bake and make chips from it or build a sandwich of your choice! This Turkish bread is very versatile and delicious.
🫙Storage instructions
The best way to store Turkish bread is to cover it in linen and place it in a bread bag. But make sure that the bread is fully cooled. It would last 3-4 days at room temperature.
For prolonged storage, cool it completely and place it in a freezer-safe bag. Then wrap in aluminum foil and mark the contents and date. It would store well for months.
♨️ How to reheat Turkish bread
To reheat the homemade bread wrap it in foil and place it in an oven. Reheat at 350 oF for 8-9 minutes. Alternatively, you can also reheat it in an air fryer at 3500F until warm.
💭 Pro Tips
- Make sure the milk is at room temperature.
- You can substitute bread flour with all-purpose flour but reduce the hydration percentage to 65 percent.
- Bulk fermentation is highly temperature-dependent, and the total time required for bulk proofing will depend on the ambient temperature in the kitchen. To speed up the fermentation on a cold day, place dough in a warm corner of your kitchen (in an oven with lights turned on).
- You can divide the dough into three equal parts and make three small Turkish bread.
- To make this recipe into a Ramazan pidesi reduce the proofing time and switch to all-purpose flour. Also, skip the honey and simply use milk wash.
- Make sure to deflate the proofed dough while pinching the pattern on it, or else it will fully puff up like pita bread.
- Make sure that the cream is at room temperature else it will not mix well with the honey. You can substitute it with whole milk.
- Sesame seeds and nigella seeds are the conventional toppings, but you can use literally anything that you like.
- To keep it soft, do not forget to brush it with butter or a tablespoon of olive oil as it comes out of the oven.
❓Frequently Asked Questions
This bread has a super soft crust with a hint of honey and is topped with crispy sesame seeds and nigella seeds. The delicious, tender crumb of this bread coupled with the unique topping and pattern makes this Turkish bread special.
How to make vegan Turkish bread?
To make vegan Turkish bread, replace whole milk with plant-based milk. Also, replace the cream with plant-based cream and butter with margarine or olive oil. Follow the rest of the recipe as such.
Much Turkish bread is very similar to Indian bread. Bazlama is close to Indian naan bread. It is a leavened bread that has added flavor to the yogurt. Naan is made in a very similar fashion. Bazlama is cooked over a fire while naan is cooked in tandoor.
The Turkish bread that is cooked in a tandoor is Tandir Ekmegi. It is more like Indian tandoori roti than naan.
More bread recipes
- Semolina Bread with Sesame Seeds
- Dairy free bread: The best whole wheat vegan milk bread
- How to bake perfect bread in Instant pot
- Tiger rolls: A foolproof Dutch crunch bread recipe
- Softest Multigrain bread
- Matcha Bread (Eggless Matcha Swirl Bread)
🍞More sourdough bread recipes
A few Bread recipes with sourdough starter are linked below:
- Rustic sourdough bread with a perfect crust and open crumb
- The best garlic sourdough bread recipe
- Jalapeño Cheddar sourdough: A spicy cheese sourdough bread
- Sourdough chocolate bread recipe: Easy and delicious !
- How to make sourdough hot dog buns from scratch?
- How to make the basic sourdough batard?
- Ciabatta bread
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Till then
Bake it Delicious!
📝 Recipe Card
Turkish bread
Ingredients
Ingredients for making Turkish bread
- 360 g bread flour slightly more than 2 ½ cups
- 152 g water slightly less than ⅔ cup
- 100 g whole milk ⅔ cup
- 8 g sugar 2 tsp
- 10 g salt 2tsp
- 7 g instant dry yeast 1 pack
Ingredients for topping the Turkish bread
- 3 tablespoon heavy cream
- 3 teaspoon Honey
- 2 tablespoon sesame seeds
- 2 tablespoon Nigella seeds
Instructions
Step 1 Make the dough
- In a large bowl combine the flour with all the dry ingredients viz. salt, sugar, and instant yeast. Use a whisk to combine them evenly.
- Now add water and milk. Use the back of a ladle to combine and form a dough ball.
- Now use clean hands to combine until no dry patch of flour is left.
- Then clean the sides of a bowl and cover the bowl with a cling wrap or kitchen towel. Let the dough rest and ferment while undergoing autolyse.
- After 45 minutes go in with wet hands and stretch and fold the dough while deflating any air build-up. Turn the bowl 45 degree and repeat. Keep repeating until you have done enough stretching and folding to tighten the dough and form a dough ball. Then lift the dough by placing your hand under it and flip.
Step 2 Bulk proof the dough
- Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and let the dough bulk-proof for 1 hour or until it becomes double in volume. If you are using instant dry yeast, this would not take longer than that.
- Always go by the bulk and volume increase in the dough and not the timeline.
Step 3 Dividing the dough and Shaping
- When the dough becomes fuller and almost doubled up in volume, transfer it onto a flour-dusted work surface.
- Gather the edges to form a round. Then divide it into two equal parts using a bench scraper. You can simply eyeball it or use a weighing machine to divide them into two equal parts.
- Then roll them into individual rounds and cover them.
- Let them rest for 20 minutes while keeping them covered with a kitchen towel.
- Then take one round and use your fingers to press and spread the dough to create a round-shaped flatbread.
- Lift it and place it on a parchment-lined baking tray. Also dust it with some cornmeal.
- Repeat the process with the second round. When it is rolled into a disk of about one-fourth of an inch thickness, gently lift it and place it on the baking tray.
Step 4 Proofing and Topping
- Now cover the shaped Turkish bread with a kitchen towel and let them proof for 40 minutes or until they become fuller in volume and puff up a bit. ( If using instant dry yeast see recipe notes)
- Then you go in with your fingers and press it down around its corners marking a circular periphery. Then make the internal pattern of your choice. I made 4 parallel lines and then made 4 more parallel lines placed diagonally to the previous lines so that diamond shapes are formed on the Turkish bread.
- You can make whatever design you like. The key purpose is to deflate the dough and get rid of any excess air build-up in the bread.
- Now in a bowl combine room-temperature heavy cream and honey. Mix well and brush on the top of the Turkish bread. It gives the crust a shine and allows the toppings to adhere well to the bread.
- Now, for toppings, sprinkle sesame seeds and nigella seeds.
Step 5 Baking the Turkish bread
- Preheat the oven to 400 oF and place a small empty baking pan on the lower shelf.
- When it is ready, add 3-4 ice cubes to the tray and place the baking sheet with Turkish bread on the upper shelf.
- Bake them for 18-20 minutes or until they turn golden brown.
- Remove them from the oven and brush the top with butter to keep the crust soft for longer. Serve warm as your heart desires.
Notes
- Make sure the milk is at room temperature.
- You can substitute bread flour with all-purpose flour but reduce the hydration percentage to 65 percent.
- Bulk fermentation is highly temperature-dependent, and the total time required for bulk proofing will depend on the ambient temperature in the kitchen. To speed up the fermentation on a cold day, place dough in a warm corner of your kitchen (in an oven with lights turned on).
- You can divide the dough into three equal parts and make three small Turkish bread.
- To make this recipe into a Ramazan pidesi reduce the proofing time and switch to all-purpose flour. Also, skip the honey and simply use milk wash.
- Make sure to deflate the proofed dough while pinching the pattern on it, or else it will fully puff up like pita bread.
- Make sure that the cream is at room temperature else it will not mix well with the honey. You can substitute it with whole milk.
- Sesame seeds and nigella seeds are the conventional toppings, but you can use literally anything that you like.
- To keep it soft, do not forget to brush it with some butter as it comes out of the oven.
- Instant dry yeast: If you are using instant dry yeast the timelines will vary. It will take double the time to bulk fermentation and proofing. So, be patient and observe the increase in the volume of the dough.
Nutrition Facts
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