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Turkish Simit Recipe

Simits on a cooling rack on a dark background.
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4.9 from 11 reviews

Simit is a crunchy, ring shaped, braided street bread with an amazing nutty flavor of toasted sesame seeds.

Ingredients

Scale

For the Dough:

  • 500g (3 + ¼ cup) flour 
  • 2 teaspoon dry instant yeast
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 300ml warm water

For The Coating:

  • ½ cup molasses (grape or date)

  • ¼ cup water

  • 1 tablespoon flour

  • 300g (about 1 and 1/2 cups) toasted sesame seeds

Instructions

Make the dough:

  1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, yeast and salt.
  2. Gradually pour in the water and mix it with your hand. Knead it for 5 minutes or until you get a smooth and non-sticky, elastic dough.
  3. Alternatively, you can use a stand mixer with a dough hook for this step.
  4. Cover it and let it rise for about 1 hour, until it doubles in size.

Prepare the coating:

  1. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the molasses, water and flour. Set it aside.
  2. Put the sesame seeds in another bowl. Put it aside. If the sesame seeds are raw, toast them in a pan beforehand.

Shape the simit dough:

  1. When the dough doubles in size after 1 hour, punch it down and transfer on a floured surface. Shape it into a log and cut it into 6 equal pieces. And then cut each piece into two. You will have 12 pieces in total.
  2. Grab two pieces and roll them into a rope, 20 inches/50cm in length.
  3. Put these side by side and stick the ends by pinching.
  4. Twist in opposite directions to make a braid.
  5. Combine the two ends by pinching them together and make a ring.
  6. Repeat this for the remaining dough balls.

Coat the simit dough and bake:

  1. Preheat the oven at 425C/220C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and put it aside.
  2. Soak the simit ring into the molasses mixture first and then put it into the sesame seed bowl. Transfer onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden. 

Notes

  1. The amount of protein in flour is important to have the right flavor in simit, it must be 13 or more. We searched for the right flour at the market, but it wasn’t very easy, so we had to visit a few markets and finally found one with 14. Check out its label before buying!
  2. Use toasted sesame seeds for a good simit taste. If you can’t find them toasted at the market, toast them yourself beforehand. To do this, heat a non-stick pan and toast the sesame seeds by stirring occasionally until light brown and you feel that nutty flavor.
  3. In the coating mixture, don’t leave the flour out. It gives a consistency and helps the mixture stick on the dough ring.For a crunchier result, just like we do when baking bread, spray some water into the oven right after you put the prepared dough rings in the oven.

Nutrition

Find it online: https://www.giverecipe.com/1-simit-1-cheese-please/