Tuesdays With Dorie – Baking with Julia: Ka’kat

Ever since I saw Julie & Julia, I’ve loved the idea of baking and cooking my way through a cookbook.  While I may not have the same gumption Julie Powell did in completing her “524 recipes in 365 days” challenge,  I still want to make the effort to try new recipes and get out of my comfort zone.  Cue Tuesdays with Dorie, an open group in which anyone can bake along.  On certain Tuesdays of each month, the group bakes recipes from Baking with Julia and/(or) Baking Chez Moi ((both by Dorie Greenspan- hence the name of the blog!)).  I will be baking from Baking with Julia, as that is the book I own, but don’t worry… Baking Chez Moi is on my wishlist (along with about 50 million other cookbooks).

First up in May is Ka’kat.  According to the blurb listed before the recipe, Ka’kat is an Eastern Mediterranean street food.  It is a bread sized for snacking and is reminiscent of soft American pretzels.  It is encrusted with sesame seeds and often flavored with mahleb, the ground kernels of a type of black cherry found in the region.

I made a basic dough and kneaded it before covering it and leaving it to rise.  The dough then gets punched down and separated into 32 pieces.

Each piece is rolled into a rope, and the ends are pinched together.  After this, it is left to rise a second time.  Finally, the dough is brushed with an egg wash and coated in sesame seeds before being sent to the oven.

These were so warm and tasty!  I left the mahleb out of mine.  I also served them with some homemade hummus and herb infused olive oil.  The tahini in the hummus paired well with the bread (sesame and sesame go well together, who’dathunkit? haha!).

You can find out who else made this bread and what they thought here!