Ramazan pidesi, Turkish leavened bread historically eaten through the night meals of Ramadan — a month through which Muslims strictly quick from sunup to sunset — is mild, chewy and coated in sesame and nigella seeds. Turkish pizza maker Serhan Ayhan of Astoria, Queens-based pizza popup Next Level Pizza created a model of the bread that cooks up in both an Ooni oven or a house oven. Glazed with egg and yogurt and dimpled in a criss-cross design, it is a bread that deserves to be the centerpiece of your iftar (the night meal that ends the day’s quick).
With the intention to make a pidesi recipe that’s versatile, Serhan supplies a couple of totally different choices for cooking. Yeast, salt and temperature can all fluctuate barely relying in your preferences.
Designed to work whether or not you favor sourdough or instantaneous yeast, Serhan’s recipe contains methods for each. If baking with sourdough starter, you’ll want so as to add someday to the recipe time, as you’ll must make a levain (a combination of water, flour and sourdough starter) and depart it to pre-ferment in a single day earlier than including it to the remainder of the combo.
You’ll be able to change the quantity of salt you add to the recipe-anything between 15 to twenty grams will work-but needless to say the much less salt used the extra slack this dough will likely be. Serhan prefers diluting the salt in about 25g of the recipe’s water and including it after the preliminary combine.
Lastly, there’s room to play with the temperature of your oven, anyplace from 450° to 600°F (230° to 315°C). Pidesi baked at the next temperature (550° to 600°F/290° to 315°C) could also be performed in 4 to six minutes and yield a softer bread with good charring, whereas the identical dough baked at a decrease temperature (450° to- 550°F / 230° to 290°C) could also be performed in 6 to 12 minutes (or longer) and yield a crispier bread that has a good, golden brown crust.
This recipe is featured in “This Ramazan Pidesi is an Iftar Centerpiece.”
Time
10 hours (1 hour energetic, 9 hours passive)
Yield
3 x 12-inch pides
Gear
dough scraper
scale
Ooni pizza oven
pastry brush
Ooni Infrared thermometer
Elements
For the dough (sourdough model)
7 cups (900 grams) bread flour (12 to 13% protein)
¾ cup (100 grams) complete wheat flour
24 fluid ounces (700 grams) heat water, about 80°Fs
200 grams younger levain
2 ½ to three teaspoons (15 to twenty grams) positive sea salt
For the dough (Instantaneous yeast model)
7 ¾ cups (1000 grams) bread flour (12 to 13% protein)
¾ cup (100 grams) complete wheat flour
27 fluid ounces (800 grams) heat water, about 90 to 95°F
2 ½ to three teaspoons (15 to twenty grams) positive sea salt
1 teaspoon (4 grams) instantaneous dry yeast
For the glaze
1 egg
2 teaspoons (10 grams) water
2 tablespoons (20 grams) plain full-fat yogurt
3 grams sesame seeds
3 grams nigella seeds
3 grams flaky salt
Technique
If you happen to’re making the dough utilizing instantaneous dry yeast, skip to the following step. If utilizing sourdough starter:
Be sure that your starter is well-fed (often 3 feedings about 10 to 12 hours aside, relying on the temperature) earlier than constructing the levain. The evening earlier than making your dough, combine about one tablespoon (about 25 grams) of the mature starter into 100 grams of water and 100 grams of bread flour.
Combine
In a big mixing bowl, mix the flour, water, salt and yeast (or levain, if utilizing). Combine by hand till simply integrated. Cowl the bowl and let your dough relaxation for about 20 minutes.
Combine by hand till simply integrated.
Cowl and relaxation for about 20 minutes.
After about 20 minutes, attain beneath the dough with a moist hand and pull a couple of quarter of it out, stretching till you are feeling resistance. Pull this part excessive to the opposite facet of the dough. Repeat for either side of the dough, strengthening the gluten. Invert the complete dough within the bowl when completed and canopy to relaxation.
Repeat this collection of stretches and folds each half-hour about 3 or 4 occasions, permitting the dough to bulk ferment for a complete of three to five hours, relying on the room temperature and humidity. Bulk fermenting merely means permitting dough to relaxation and proof in a single mass earlier than making into loaves. By the top of the majority fermentation, the dough ought to really feel bubbly, and it ought to have elevated in quantity by at the very least 20%.
Fastidiously dump the dough onto a piece floor and portion it into 3 equal items utilizing a bench scraper and scale. Every bit ought to weigh 620 to 630-grams, or about 22 ounces. Strive to not push an excessive amount of air out of your dough.


Form every dough ball right into a spherical. To roll rounds by hand, take an open hand on one facet of the dough, then flip and tighten till you may have a round dough ball. You need to use a bench knife rather than your open hand to assist flip and tighten the dough if you wish to.
Cowl the dough balls and allow them to relaxation for about 20 minutes after this preliminary shaping. Then, form them once more to strengthen the dough much more. The highest of the dough ball needs to be taut. Watch out to not degas the dough or over tighten and by chance tear its floor.
If you happen to plan to bake the identical day, enable the frivolously floured dough balls (whereas coated) to rise at room temperature for about 3 to 4 hours earlier than baking.
In case you are not baking that very same day, you possibly can retailer the dough balls within the fridge after frivolously flouring their surfaces. Doing this can enable them to proceed to ferment (usually, the levain dough will likely be good the following day and the yeasted dough as much as 2 days). Make sure to take away the dough at the very least 3 hours earlier than baking to make it simpler to form and to forestall the dough from ballooning through the bake.
To make the glaze, combine collectively one egg, 10 grams water and 20 grams yogurt utilizing a fork or a whisk till nicely mixed.
Flippantly flour the floor of your peel or baking pan. Place the dough ball on the pan, seam down. With a clear (or gloved) hand, gently press out the dough till it’s a large circle, being cautious to not degas the dough.
Utilizing your arms or a pastry brush, cowl your dough with the glaze combination.
To create the sample, first use your fingers or the facet of your hand to press the dough down and create a ½-inch-wide rim across the edge (that is elective — you possibly can merely create the weave sample).
Subsequent, create the weave sample. Use the identical approach, beginning in a single course after which within the different to type perpendicular strains.
Brush on the glaze as soon as extra and repeat the sample to make sure its definition doesn’t get misplaced through the bake.
Sprinkle flaky salt, nigella and sesame seeds on high of the dough.
There are a couple of approaches, however normally, we wish to be certain that the within and backside of the pide are sufficiently baked.
A pide baked at the next temperature (550° to 600°F/290° to 315°C) could also be performed in 4 to six minutes and yield a softer bread with good charring, whereas the identical dough baked at a decrease temperature (450° to 550°F /230° to 290°C) could also be performed in 6 to 12 minutes (or longer) and yield a crispier bread that has a good, golden brown crust.
If baking in an Ooni, preheat the oven for at the very least quarter-hour on excessive. Intention for a stone temperature round 550° to 600°F (260° to 315°C).
Dial the flame to low, then launch your pide and depart it to cook dinner for 1 to 2 minutes till the again begins to brown.
Flip and proceed to bake, maintaining a tally of the dough to make sure that it browns evenly however doesn’t burn. Prepare dinner for 4 to six minutes whole.
If baking in a house oven on a pizza stone or peel, preheat your oven to 500°F (260°C) for about 45 minutes. Place your dough on a baking sheet or baking pan and cook dinner for 8 to 12 minutes (as much as quarter-hour if cooking in a baking pan) till brown however not charred. Rotate the pide midway by way of the bake, checking for doneness.
Enable the pide to chill on a cooling rack for a couple of minutes earlier than serving. Tear or reduce utilizing a knife or pizza cutter on the seams of the dough, share and luxuriate in.
Afiyet olsun! (Get pleasure from your meal!)