A traditional bread, made from dough spread liberally with butter or margarine, Yemeni kubaneh bakes up light and fluffy. It’s perfect with your morning coffee or an afternoon cup of tea.
There appear to be as many recipes for Yemeni kubaneh as there are Yemeni mamas and grandmas.
When our international bread theme was chosen for this month’s Bread Bakers, I immediately started to research for an unfamiliar bread to test and bake. We were supposed to choose a bread from a country that is not our own but I decided to take that one step further and choose a recipe I'd never heard of before. In my search, I came across kubaneh first on
Food52, and it was beautiful. Seriously, go have a look. Theirs is much prettier than mine.
The instructions, however, seemed a bit challenging to follow without step-by-step photos or a video. So down the rabbit hole of YouTube I went. So many recipes and so many methods! And different spellings:
Kubane, kubaneh, kubana, kubani, kubneh. What they all seem to have in common is using lots of butter or margarine to create layers of thinly rolled or hand stretched dough before baking.
Although I didn’t follow the instructions or measurements exactly, this
YouTube video (in Italian – the presenter - and Hebrew – the baker) was my best guide. You might find it helpful to watch as well. I gathered, from my faulty Italian (which is really just a mix of Portuguese and Spanish, since truth be told, I don't speak Italian) is that Yemeni kubaneh was originally part of the main family meal, which in Yemen is served in the middle of the day, rather than in the evening.
According to references, including Wikipedia, kubaneh is a Yemenite Jewish bread, found in many varieties throughout Yemen. And if the YouTube video and website
ItaliaEbraica are any indication, Italy as well. I'm going to hazard a guess to say you'll probably find it being baked anywhere people of Jewish Yemeni heritage are living. Kubaneh was traditionally baked long and slow, in the embers of the evening fire, to be eaten the next day on the Sabbath. Nowadays, in all the YouTube videos I watched, it seems normal ovens are used.
Yemeni Kubaneh
This traditional Yemeni bread can be slightly sweetened by a sugar glaze, as this version is, or can be served with a tomato sauce.
Ingredients
For the bread dough:
1 1/4 cups or 300ml warm water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons quick yeast
4 cups or 500g flour
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup or 75g butter, softened, plus some for the baking pan
For the sugar syrup:
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup or 60ml warm water
For garnish (and flavor):
1 teaspoon sesame seeds and/or 1 teaspoon nigella seeds (I used both.)
Method
In the bowl of your stand mixer or a large bowl, combine the sugar, yeast and warm water. Leave to proof for a few minutes.
When the foam and bubbles form, sift in the flour, baking soda and salt. According to the video, this eliminates the bugs and foreign objects.
Add in 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk, reserving the second egg yolk. Mix till well combined and then knead until you have a stretchy bouncy dough.
Drizzle in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and form the dough into a ball, turning it to coat with the oil.
Cover with a cloth and set in a warm place to rise for 40 minutes.
Oil your clean work surface with the rest of the olive oil and turn the dough out onto it. Wet your hands and use them to divide the dough into 8 equal pieces.
Set your softened butter by your clean work surface. Use your hands to spread one of the dough pieces into a thin square. Top this with bits of butter, spreading it around. Don’t be shy with the butter. The dough may tear a little. Just pat it together again.
Repeat with a second piece of dough.
Then gently lift the second dough square and put it on top of the first one. Press them both out even larger.
Roll the dough up into a log, starting from end farthest from you. Set the log aside and continue the process with the other six pieces of dough.
You should now have four dough logs. Line a baking pan with baking parchment which you have rubbed with softened butter.
Using a sharp knife, cut the dough logs into 8 pieces each and fit these into the prepared pan, cut side up.
Drizzle a few drops of water into the reserved egg yolk and whisk to combine. Use a pastry brush to coat the dough with egg yolk. Sprinkle with the sesame and nigella seeds.
Cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm place while you preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.
Bake in the oven for 38-42 minutes, covering the pan with foil if the bread starts to brown too quickly.
Meanwhile, make the sugar syrup by dissolving the 2 tablespoons of sugar in 1/4 cup or 60ml hot water.
Remove the Yemeni kubaneh from the oven. Use a spoon to drip the sugar syrup glaze all over the bread.
Pop the pan back in the oven for another 5-6 minutes, watching it carefully so it doesn’t burn. Turn it midway through if your oven doesn’t heat evenly.
Allow to cool a bit before serving because apparently, the best way is to let everyone help themselves and pull a piece (or three) off.
Enjoy!
Many thanks to our host today, Wendy of
A Day in the Life on the Farm for this great theme, and for all of her behind-the-scenes work. I am always delighted at the opportunity to learn something new and this Yemeni kubaneh was definitely that!
Check out all the other international breads we are sharing today:
#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all our of lovely bread by following our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated after each event on the #BreadBakers home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.
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