The Art of Armenian Cooking says tahin bread is “a favorite Armenian Lenten pastry”. My great-grandmother just made it whenever she had dough leftover from making lahmajoon.
Dough: – see dough ingredients below for lahmajoon with one change: instead of 1 Tbsp. sugar, use 3 Tbsp.
Filling:
1 16 oz. jar tahini
2 cups sugar
1 stick butter, melted for brushing the pastry
Make the dough according to the lahmajoon directions below up until the point when it doubles in size. Punch down and divide into tangerine sized balls. Let the balls rise for 15 minutes before adding the filling.
Filling: Just mix the sugar and tahini together very well, making a paste. Melt the butter and set aside with a pastry brush.
Now comes the hard part to explain – forming the dough and the filling into what you see above. I’ll try to do my best but if you have any questions, feel free to comment and I”ll answer them.
Get a ball of dough and roll it into a long rectangle. It should be about half the width of your hand. Roll it out as thinly as possible. Brush lightly with butter. Put about two heaping Tbsp. of the filling in a thin row down the length of the rectangle. Leave a 1/2 inch with no filling at the ends. Now fold a third of the dough over the filling from the left side. Repeat with the right side, sealing the filling in. Roll out lengthwise again to flatten, being careful not to squish out the filling on the ends. Now you want to coil the dough around like a snail’s shell into a circle. Roll out once more to flatten. Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes. After 15 minutes, keep watch on them because they go from raw looking to brown very quickly.
Tahin bread is kind of an acquired taste. You really have to like tahini. If you don’t, I suppose you could substitute peanut butter or any nut butter.
Lisa Cooks 