Turkish Bread

Mix together the sugar, yeast and salt into the flour, add the warm water and roughly mix to form a lose dough. Lightly flour the bench and dump out the dough, form into a mound and start kneading. You will knead for 10 minutes but can knead for up to 15 minutes. If you have sticky hands lightly flour the bench, do this until your hands stop taking on the dough. At the 8-minute mark you will find the dough has started becoming silky, don’t stop keep kneading.   When you are happy with the dough form a large “dumpling” like ball. Drizzle a little of the oil into the original bowl so the dough doesn’t stick to the bowl when rising. Place the dough ball into the bowl and the remaining oil can be poured over the top and rubbed in. Cover with a damp tea towel and place in a warm place for 1 to 1.5 hours. The dough would have doubled in size. After the dough has proofed, do a few stretch and pulls to gather the oil and dump out on the bench, knead for 1 – 2 minutes to incorporate the oil. The dough should not be sticky, is so add a little flour.  Preheat the oven to 200oc with two separate baking trays on the middle rack.  Cut the dough ball and form two logs and pat out into your desired shape. The thickness of the dough should be approximately half an inch. Sprinkle some semolina onto a baking tray, place the lengths of dough onto the semolina for 15 to 20 min covered with the damp tea towel.  Once the dough has risen slightly you can make a series of channels with your fingertips to flatten them out a little. Lightly milk wash the tops of the lengths of dough and sprinkle on the sesame and nigella seed mix. Open the oven and pull out the middle rack, sprinkle some of the semolina on each of the baking trays. (Don’t do this beforehand as the semolina will burn). Place the lengths of dough onto the semolina and close the oven. Bake at 200oc for 10 – 12 minutes or until golden brown.  Enjoy!