aly-hassabelnaby's blog

Hey everyone,

I've posted another recipe on my website, this time for a pocket-style barley bread we have in Egypt. This one was slightly challenging to produce a full pocket with barley flour since it doesn't contribute any gluten. Pocket formation seems to depend on a strong gluten network and I managed to get enough strength in the dough by using 50% wheat and 50% barley while pushing my oven to its maximum temperature.

Check out the recipe here: Egyptian barley bread recipe

Let me know if you've tested it and how it turned out. Have you tried using barley flour before in baking? There seems to be little information here on The Fresh Loaf about barley flour.

Hey everyone,

I've finally managed to post another recipe on my website, this time for a crunchy type of bread we have in Egypt called Fayesh. This one has a unique sourdough used to leaven it which is made from fermenting ground chickpeas in milk at room temperature. Has anyone seen something like this before? Because I certainly haven't until I started looking into this recipe.

I hope you find the recipe interesting and maybe try it yourself and let me know how it goes for you. Maybe there's room for a wider discussion on different sources of fermentation as well, since this one was an eye opener for me.

Hello everyone,

I've posted the latest recipe on my blog for a type of bread we have in Egypt called "Eish Senn". It's a pocket-style bread with lots of wheat bran mixed into the dough. Have a look and let me know if you give it a try and what do you think of the flavour?

The Breads of Egypt - Eish senn

Hello everyone,

I've posted the latest recipe on my blog for a unique and ancient type of bread we have in Egypt called "Eish Shamsi"

The Breads of Egypt - Eish shamsi

This was quite challenging to produce and took a few trials but I think I've got it nailed now. Since there's a massive amount of baking experience here on The Fresh Loaf, I would love any feedback from you regarding the recipe and the way I describe the steps. If that doesn't sound interesting to you, then I hope you learn something new about something really really old.

Thanks.

Hello everyone,

I would like to divert your attention to my blog https://tableya.net/ and my "The Breads of Egypt" project, where I attempt to document the variety of bread in Egypt with accurate and well-tested recipes.

I have a few recipes on it already and there's a few more planned. Would love to get some feedback from some seasoned bakers if you have the time to try out a recipe. Even if you're not inclined to, you might just learn a thing or two about Egypt.

My basic wheat flour starter (known affectionately as Golfedan) has been doing some nice work recently and I guess it's finally decent enough to share here. I just baked these two today. I started off with a poolish to which I added everything else the next day. Here's the breakdown.

Poolish:

50g starter + 175g water + 175g bread flour (to create a basic 200-200 poolish)

I let that sit at room temperature for about 13-14 hours until it was quite bubbly on top and able to float.

Dough:

Poolish + 500g water + 200g whole rye flour (pretty much the standard rye flour here in Sweden) + 600g bread flour

Autolyse for 20 minutes then add 20g salt.

After about 10 minutes of kneading, I let the whole thing ferment for about 4 hours doing two stretch-and-folds during this period. I then divided the whole batch in half and pre-rounded the two pieces and let them rest for 30 minutes then shaped them as batards.

Next came an hour and a half of bench-proofing and into the oven they went. The thermometer was reading about 260 degrees C as I put them in which was really good. 10 steamy minutes later and then an additional half hour at around 230 C gave me these. Quite pleased with that.

I decided to have another crack at rye flour but this time I also added a bit of wheat bran to the dough.

Here's what I did:
600g bread flour + 70g rye + 30g wheat bran
490g water
15g salt
1/2 tsp instant yeast

I mixed everything together and kneaded it for about 10 minutes then refrigerated the dough for almost 20 hours. The next day, I took the dough out of the fridge and divided into to roughly equal pieces. I left them for an hour to come up to room temperature then shaped them into batards. Bench proofing was about 40 minutes, then in they went into a steamy hot oven.

I gotta say, those ears don't look half bad.

In April of 2015, my wife and I completed a long-awaited move to Luleå in the north of Sweden where she joined the university for her PhD degree. Having lived in Egypt all our lives before that, the move wasn't easy but we're slowly finding our way around town and starting to make sense of the language and the culture.  One of the things that really stand out for me about food in Sweden is how much of a bread culture they are, which of course means a lot of variety. Being a cold weather country, rye, an ingredient that just doesn't exist in Egypt, is available in abundance around here. So I decided to pick up a bag of rye flour and try my hand at it.  Unfortunately though, I had to give my sourdough starter that I've kept back in Cairo for more than a year to friends. I split it in half and gave to two different friends; one of whom actually used it and sent me pictures which was endearing. She also gave some to her aunt who was fascinated by the idea of a live culture that just keeps going.  Anyway, I used a small amount of instant yeast to get a preferment going and let it sit for about 14 hours at room temperature then proceeded with the rest of the dough. Here's what I did:  Pre-ferment:426g water + 200g Wheat flour + 200g rye flour + 1/4 tsp yeast  The next day I added 200g of wheat flour, 13g of salt and another 1/4 tsp of yeast. I did three stretch and folds at 30 minute intervals and then let it bulk ferment for an hour. After the hour, I shaped it into a rough round shape (need more practice here) and let it bench-proof for about 35 minutes.  Meanwhile, I pre-heated the oven all the way to 260C with a cast iron skillet in there. I flopped the dough from a towel onto the hot skillet, scored it, added steam and let it cook for about 20 minutes and for 30 more minutes without steam. The end result was a pretty good looking and smelling loaf which tasted very nice. I thought the rye added some depth of flavor and a bit of earthiness that barley flour just didn't do when I used it back in Egypt.  Anyway, here it is and I'll definitely keep trying new things with rye flour in the future. Greetings from Sweden and Trevlig Midsommar!     Here's a look at the crumb: