Tahini & Poppy Seed Buns

Some day you just need a big fat bun your life… or at least I do. I often find myself day dreaming about dough & all of it’s possibilities, from sweet to savoury there’s not much a good dough can’t do to satisfy those cravings. One flavour that can also go either way in terms of sweet or savoury is tahini & so I wondered what would happen when dough met tahini.

Tahini & Poppy Seed Buns

Tahini is a paste made from toasted & ground sesame seed & is used often in Middle Eastern cuisine. Sesame seed is an ancient food & surrounded with history, it’s believed that sesame seed has been cultivated since at least 2 AD in Egypt. Both ancient Greek & India traditionally used sesame as both a medicine as well as a food. Tahini or tahina as it’s also known (from the Arabic ‘tahn’, meaning ‘ground’) is believed to have originated from Persia where it was called ‘ardeh’ before it travelled into Isreal. For centuries only the wealthy could obtain the seed & ingredients to make tahini & in some cultures is was even used as a from of currency because of this.

Tahini & Poppy Seed Buns

Nowadays it’s thankfully a lot easier to get a hold of a jar of tahini but it’s not just good for making hummus & baba ganoush. My experience of trying tahini was on our travels in Greece where it’s commonly used in sweeter ways, spread on breads & topped with honey or jams. You can even buy sweeter versions ready mixed with things such as honey or cocoa. So I’ve taken a little inspiration from this & combined a simple sweet bread dough with some honey sweetened tahini & thrown in some poppy seeds for colour & crunchy contrast. The resulting tahini & poppy seed buns are beautiful, subtle, not overly sweet but just enough to feel indulgent.

Tahini & Poppy Seed Buns

TAHINI & POPPY SEED BUNS
(makes 6 large buns)

Ingredients:

For the dough:

  • 350g strong while flour
  • 7g dried fast acting yeast
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 30g caster sugar
  • 90g butter
  • 180ml milk

For the filling:

  • 150g tahini
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 85g poppy seeds

For the syrup glaze:

  • 40g caster sugar
  • 40ml water

Method:

For the dough:

  • Add the milk & butter to a small saucepan & gently heat until the butter has melted (or you can do this in the microwave) set aside to cool until just lukewarm
  • In a large bowl combine the flour, yeast & salt (be sure to place the salt & sugar on the opposite side of the bowl to the yeast)
  • Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, pour in the milk mixture
  • Stir until the mixture is well combined & a dough is formed (you many not need all of the milk mixture, or add a little more milk if your dough feels a bit dry)
  • Empty the dough out onto a floured work surface & knead for 10 minutes (or for 5 minutes using a dough hook in a stand mixer) until it is smooth & elastic
  • Shape the dough into a ball shape & place back into the bowl, cover with clingfilm or a bag for life & leave to rise for about an hour, until it has doubled in size
  • Once your dough has risen, tip it out onto a floured work surface & knock back the dough (knead out the air)
  • Roll or stretch your dough out into a rectangle, roughly 20x30cm in size (so long as rectangular don’t worry too much about exact size)

For the filling:

  • For the filling, simply soften the tahini in a small bowl before beating together with the honey & poppy seeds
  • Take spoonfuls of the filling & dollop it all over the dough
  • Use a small spatula or the back of a spoon to spread the filling all over two thirds of the length of dough, going right up to the edges but leaving one third uncovered

To shape & bake:

  • Next, take the short edge of the uncovered third of dough & fold it over the middle third of dough (picture your dough as three rectangles)
  • Now take the last third (covered) of dough & fold it over the last piece you folded piece to line up with the edge of dough (creating 3 layers of dough)
  • Lightly use a rolling pin or your hands to flatten & stretch out the dough a little
  • Use a sharp knife to cut out 6 equal sized strips of dough (along the width of the dough)
  • With each strip of dough, twist each of the end of the strip in opposite directions to swirl the dough (like a spiral)
  • With the swirled dough, wrap it around your fingers a couple of times, wrapping upwards, with one end of the dough on the bottom (which will be hidden underneath) then tucking the top end of the dough back through the centre hole of the wrap where your fingers were (repeat for all strips)
  • Place your buns onto a parchment lined baking sheet & cover with cling film, a tea towel, or (my preference) place inside a bag for life & leave to prove for 45 minutes – 1 hour until doubled in size
  • When proved bake the buns in the oven at 190C for 15 – 20 minutes, until beautifully browned

For the glaze:

  • Whilst the buns are baking, make the syrup by placing the sugar & water in a small saucepan set over a low heat
  • Gently heat the mixture until all of the sugar has dissolved
  • Then bring the mixture to a boil before reducing to medium heat & bubbling away until the mixture starts to become syrupy (around 5 minutes)
  • Once baked, remove the tahini & poppy seed buns from the oven & brush all over with the syrup whilst still hot before setting aside to cool

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