Lebanese Sweet Tahini Swirls
By: Blago
Published: Friday, May 14, 2010 - 1:06pm

Ingredients




This amount is for four Tahini Swirls
dough:
1 teasp dry yeast
120 mls lukewarm water
200 grs plain flour (or use a ready-made bread flour 2 teasps sugar
1 tablesp olive oil
filling:
4 small tablesps tahin (I used the salted variety)
4 tablesps sugar
4 teasps olive oil
4 teasps cinnamon
optional: teasp grated lemon rind
white castor sugar and flour to dust worktop

Preparation

1 Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water, and add the sugar and oil. Add the flour, a handful at a time. Quickly knead into a floppy, flexible dough that does not stick to the hands anymore. Leave covered in a bowl for about 2 or 3 hours, to rise. As all the air will be rolled out of it later, the stretchyness of the dough is more important than the amount of air in it. 2 When the dough has had some time to rise, divide it into four balls. Roll out one ball at a time, into a rough rectangle of “pizza thickness” – about 2 or 3 mm (1). Scatter the teaspoon of olive oil over it. I combined the tahin with the sugar, added a teaspoon of finely ground lemon rind (packet) to that, and scattered the somewhat dryer tahin mixture, like crumbs, over the dough surface (2). Dust the tahin-sugar layer with cinnamon. Gently press it flat with the back of a spoon. You’re now ready to roll. 3 Pre-heat the oven to 190° C. If you use a baking stone, put it in the middle rack. 4 Dust the worktop with a bit of castor sugar and flour to help with the rolling. Cut sqares of baking parchment of about 17 x 17 cm. Roll up the dough rectangle, starting at the longest edge. Roll and pull and gently twist a bit, and the resulting sausage will be much longer, about 40 to 50 cm (4).  5 Taking one end as the center, now turn the sausage in on itself, forming a rolled bun (5).  6 Gently press it flat with your hand, then transfer onto a piece of parchment, and use the rolling pin again to gently roll the bun into a 15cm wide flat circle, about a cm in thickness (6). Prepare as much swirls as your oven can hold in one go, leave the rest covered up. 7 Using a pizza peel or an extra-wide spatula to support the flat tahini swirls sitting on their separate parchment, quickly transfer them into the oven. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or till parts of the surface have turned a deep golden brown. Get them out and leave them to cool and get nice and crispy on a wire rack.

About


Thinly stretched layers of crispy crunchyness with a slightly caramelized sesame filling and a hint of cinnamon; these “Tahinov Hatz” are absolutely wonderful.
The added cinnamon makes it perhaps less authentic, but the taste is  absolutely awesome. They are not complicated to make. See a how-to set of pictures herre: http://www.blago.net/baking/bread/lebanese-sweet-tahini-swirls/ (numbers in text refer to the picture there)