Ok, I don’t want to mean that the other recipes were bad, but this-one-is-good! And again, it is something that I did not normally really like!

The name of this lovely salty-buttery pastry is “Çatal Çörek”. “Çatal” literally means fork in Turkish but unfortunately I am not sure if the name of this pastry comes really from that meaning. So if any of my Turkish readers know the fact about that, please comment here so that we all learn!

 

Generally, this pastry is decorated with nigella seeds, however since I absolutely hate those seeds, I replaced them with normal sesame seeds. You can use nigella if you like..

 

 

In this version below, you see that I made the pastry with 3 pieces, however you can also just make it with two pieces. Or you can also braid it, there are many different shapes you can make. With this shape below, the amount of dough makes about 20-25 pastries, of course if you change the shape then the total amount of pastries you will get will also change.

 

The resulting pastry is a bit crunchy and the taste is really buttery. You will not get enough of them believe me!! So enjoy your pastries!

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Ingredients:

 

(makes about 20-25 pastries in this shape)

For the dough:
200 gr. butter, in room temperature
2 1/2 tbsp / 37.5 ml granulated white sugar
1/2 cup / 1.2 dl vegetable oil (I used canola oil, rypsiöljy in Finnish)
1/2 cup / 1.2 dl yogurt (I used Bulgarian Jogurtti)
3 cups / 7.2 dl white flour
1/2 tsp / 0.025 dl salt
1 tsp / 0.05 dl baking powder
(1 tsp / 0.05 dl Mahlab (veikselinkirsikka in Finnish) – This is optional. I did not find any mahlab so I did not use it, and my pastries were just as delicious.

 

For the surface:
4 egg yolks (depending on how much you put, you might need more)
1 cup / 2.4 dl sesame seeds

 

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1. In a medium mixing bowl, put butter, sugar, vegetable oil and yogurt and mix them briefly with your hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. To this mixture, add baking powder, salt and flour (gradually) and start kneading the dough. You should get a greasy and smooth dough.

 

 

 

 

3. Cover the dough with a stretch film and put in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes, up to 2 hours. The reason why we chill the dough is that when we first make it ready, it will be in room temperature and quite soft to roll easily. When you chill it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, it will get easier to roll. So you can adjust the amount of time you leave it in the fridge according to this idea.

 

 

4. When the dough is ready, start heating the oven to 200C.

 

5. Take two pieces from the dough, each about the size of a walnut. Roll each with your hand to strings. Connect the two strings as seen in the picture below. Put these on a baking paper and add a third string in the middle, again as seen in the picture. (As I said above, this shape is optional, you can perfectly omit the third piece, which will result in more pastries in total).

 

 

 

 

6. Brush the surface of the pastry generously with egg yolk. Pour sesame seeds on the brushed surfaces, again generously.

 

 

 

7. Bake the pastries for about 20-25 minutes, until the surfaces are golden brown. After a certain point, they burn quite easily so watch the pastries carefully. Do not forget that each oven is different than each other so try to find the best baking time according to your oven by checking your pastries frequently. You will have to bake all of them in batches so the first batch might be used to adjust the baking time.

 

Enjoy your pastries with tea, in any time of the day! Yummy!!!