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Kubaneh (Jewish Yemeni Bread)
Kubaneh is a Jewish Yemeni pull-apart bread that is popular in Israel and Syria. It’s made of a lightly enriched dough that becomes very enriched when laminated with butter after the first rise. The result is a feathery-soft bread with thin layers that are perfect for tearing and dipping.
When I was making Turkish pide with nigella seeds, a friend asked me if I’d ever tried kubaneh, which also uses nigella seeds. As soon as I saw a photo of this bursting bouquet of bread and learned that it’s served with fresh grated tomatoes and spicy sahawiq / zhug sauce, I was excited to make it in both yeast and sourdough leavened versions. Make sure you check out the photo galleries at the end to see both leavening processes.
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I was also fascinated by the history and reach of this bread. For example, I found a variation on the recipe from the Libyan Jewish community in Italy. I also learned that a food historian believes the French croissant has its origin in kubaneh, when lamination traveled through Europe after Yemen became part of the Ottoman Empire.
When preparing to make my first kubaneh, I analyzed several yeast-leavened recipes: Moroccan-Israeli chef Meir Adoni’s recipe in The New York Times and this video on YouTube in which a woman named Shemesh explains how to make Jewish-Libyan kubane. From the Adoni recipe, I took the flour and water amounts, as well as the approach of using a 9-inch springform pan and baking 30 minutes uncovered at 350F. (Kubaneh is traditionally baked tightly covered overnight on residual oven heat.) From Shemesh’s recipe, I used the combination of whole egg and egg white, and I also followed her strategy to pour oil over the dough after mixing, rather than putting butter in the dough at mixing like Adoni does. My own twist on the recipe is to reduce the sugar in the dough. If you want your kubaneh to be more traditional, consider doubling the sugar and check out Shemesh’s simple-syrup pour partway through baking.
I didn’t find that the dough needed gluten development beyond the initial mixing, but in this kubaneh-making video, you can see the baker doing Rubaud mixing (minute 7:00). She does this multiple times with 10-minute rests in between. For shaping and laminating, I learned the technique in this YouTube video of Gayathri Kumar.
After I sketched out my recipe plan, I baked the kubaneh using instant yeast and it came out awesome. I then tested using a sweet stiff starter instead of instant yeast, pulling flour, water, and sugar from the dough recipe to make the starter build the night before. The fermentation was very slow and the results were lackluster until I doubled the amount of sweet stiff starter, without changing the dough again to compensate. The sourdough version then rose quickly and came out amazing.
Sourdough version three stages of fermentation: starter build, bulk fermentation, and final proof
Kubaneh (Yemenite Jewish Bread)
Kubaneh is an amazing Jewish Yemeni pull-apart bread consisting of multilayered rolls laminated with butter and nigella seeds. Both the yeast and sourdough versions are delicious and can be enjoyed at any meal and paired with sweet or savory foods. Traditionally, the bread is baked for Sabbath (Saturday) morning and served with boiled eggs, grated fresh tomatoes, and spicy zhoug sauce.
Ingredients
Yeast Version
To pour over the dough after mixing
To laminate into the dough after the first rise
To brush on the dough before baking
Sourdough Version
Sweet Stiff Starter
Final Dough
To pour over the dough after mixing
To laminate into the dough after the first rise
To brush on the dough before baking
Instructions
Sourdough Prep
Mixing
Shaping and Final Proof
Baking
Kubaneh (Yeast Version)
Kubaneh (Sourdough Version)
Shopping List
Kubaneh (Jewish Yemeni Bread)