When my friend Ya’arah’s grandmother left her village near Sanaa, Yemen, for Israel in the late 1940s, she brought along one of her prized possessions: a special tin for baking kubaneh, a buttery pull-apart bread.
“The bread is very filling and suited to have on Shabbat morning or lunch with family so that you can enjoy a restful Shabbat,” Ya’arah said.
Ya’arah’s grandmother and her family traveled by foot and donkey over mountainous terrain to Aden, a port city in southern Yemen. Walking at night to avoid thieves, and stopping to search for water along the way, they reached Aden in over four days.
In 1949, the family boarded a plane to Israel. It was one of 400 flights, departing from a British air base in Aden, that transported 45,000 Jews out of Yemen via Israel’s Operation Magic Carpet. The kubaneh pot came along for the ride, and made it all the way to a refugee camp outside Haifa.
“The most important item needed for kubaneh is the pot,” my friend, an elementary teacher, explained.
A Modern Twist
My friend’s grandmother has since put a 21st century spin on this ancient bread. (Jews lived in Yemen for thousands of years before most of the population fled the country during Operation Magic Carpet.)
“My grandmother adds Nescafé instant coffee to the mixture for the aroma and color,” Ya’arah told me.
That sounded delicious. But when I set out to make kubaneh one morning, I needed an alternative with less caffeine for my 5-year-old twins, who have endless energy as is. So I settled on chocolate, adding cocoa powder to the kubaneh dough. Like coffee, cocoa is aromatic and lends a beautiful dark brown color reminiscent of pumpernickel.
Ya’arah doesn’t have a kubaneh recipe from her grandmother, so she found one she likes on a Hebrew-language food blog, Hen in the Kitchen. I adapted my chocolate variation from a translation of that recipe.
The Lamination Process
Kubaneh is known for its tender layers of butter or oil. Lamination, a process also used to make croissants and puff pastry, involves spreading butter or oil onto dough and folding multiple times, resulting in thin, even layers of fat.
According to a fascinating New York Times article, cookbook author Joan Nathan believes that the idea for croissants originated with kubaneh, after Yemen became part of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1500s.
In turn, Nathan hypothesizes, the earliest kubaneh bakers were inspired by Indian paratha bread, which also incorporates folded layers of fat.
Classic kubaneh dough is laminated with ghee, also known as samneh, a clarified butter popular in South Asia and the Middle East.
Made by simmering butter slowly until all liquid evaporates, clarified butter is highly concentrated, with a rich, nutty flavor. As an alternative, try a stick of butter softened at room temperature, or use olive oil, as I did. It’s lighter, fruitier, and ideal if you want to go dairy-free.
Equipment
- Oven-safe pot with lid
- Shallow baking tray for rising
- Rolling pin
- Bench scraper or knife
- Standing mixer with dough hook; or mixing bowl & wooden spoon
A lidded kubaneh pot is a must-have for baking traditional kubaneh. But if you don’t plan to make kubaneh often, a multi-purpose pot would be more economical. I’ve come across recipes that call for using a spring-form pan, but these don’t have lids to trap steam, which yields a perfectly crisp crust.
I experimented with baking my chocolate kubaneh in a dutch oven. Kubaneh loaves are made up of individual rolls arranged together, resembling a bouquet of flowers. Since the walls of my large dutch oven were too far away to keep the rolls upright, my loaf turned out a bit lopsided.
But it was a small price to pay for a fantastic texture and color, and a nod to the traditional kubaneh baking method. I recommend the Overmont brand. (I have this one, in red.) The smallest size, 1.5 quarts, may do the trick, and would still come in handy for other small bread loaves, sauces, and soups.
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Chocolate Kubaneh (Yemeni Bread)
Recipe by
Servings
1 loaf
Prep time
20 minutes, plus a total of around 3 hours 15 minutes of rising time
Cooking time
1.5 hours
Cuisine
Yemenite Jewish
My good friend Ya’arah’s grandmother likes to add instant coffee to kubaneh, a laminated pull-apart bread baked for centuries by Yemenite Jews. Here, I used cocoa powder, which is equally aromatic with less caffeine. This savory bread is delicious served with cheese or boiled eggs and grated tomatoes, a popular Yemenite Shabbat brunch spread meant to be shared by friends and family.
Ingredients
- 500 g (3 1/2 cups) unbleached all-purpose or bread flour
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
- 1/2 tablespoon salt
- 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) high-quality cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) honey, divided
- 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) olive oil, plus more for laminating
- 1 1/4 cups water
Directions
- Sift flour into the bowl of a standing mixer (or a large mixing bowl if preparing the dough by hand.) Add yeast, salt, and half the honey, and mix with a wooden or silicone spoon. Add oil, water, and remaining honey, and mix until a dough just begins to com together.
- If using a standing mixer, attach the dough hook and knead at medium speed for about 10 minutes or until a smooth, elastic dough forms a ball, separating easily from the sides of the bowl. If mixing by hand, knead on a lightly floured surface until elastic and stretchy. Shape dough into a ball; the dough should stand up on its own, and spring back when poked. Elasticity is key for this recipe.
- Transfer the ball of dough to a lightly oiled bowl, and roll the dough gently to coat in oil. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside to rise in a warm place for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.
- Grease a shallow baking pan with olive oil, and spread a small amount of oil on your work surface. Divide dough into 6 equal parts using a sharp knife or bench scraper. Roll each piece into a ball and transfer to the oiled baking pan. Gently roll each dough ball in the pan to coat with oil, cover with plastic wrap or a dish towel, and let rest for 10-15 minutes.
- Grease the kubaneh pot and inside of the lid with butter or oil (I skipped this step for the dutch oven) and spread more oil on your work surface, if needed.
- With a rolling pin, roll each dough ball into a thick rectangle, then use your hands to slowly stretch the edges of the dough, forming a rectangle so thin the dough is about to tear. (If a few holes do appear, that’s fine; there is no need to repair them.)
- Spread a thin layer of olive oil (or softened butter or ghee) on the stretched dough. Fold a third of the dough towards the middle. Spread a thin layer of oil over the folded section, then fold over the remaining third so the dough resembles a closed book or envelope. Spread a final layer of oil or butter on top.
- Roll the dough lengthwise into a cylinder, as if preparing cinnamon rolls. (This forms additional layers of fat.) Cut the roll in half and place the two halves in the pot or dutch oven cut-side is facing down. Repeat with the remaining balls of dough, placing the rolls of dough one next to the other in a cluster, as if making a bouquet.
- Cover the pot with plastic wrap or a dish towel and set aside to rise for 1 1/2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius/350 degrees Farenheit. Brush dough with a little olive oil or melted butter.
- Place the lid on the kubaneh pot or dutch oven, and bake for 1 1/2 hours. (To reduce baking time: bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes, crank up the heat to 200 degrees Celcius/400 degrees Farenheit and bake for another 37 minutes, followed by 6 minutes of baking without the lid.)
- Remove pot from the oven, and spread a little more butter on the surface of the bread. Return the pot to the oven without the lid and bake for another 10 minutes, or until the kubanah browns.
- Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. Turn onto a plate or tray and serve with grated tomatoes. Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.
- if preparing in advance: once dough pieces have been laminated, rolled, and placed in the pot, cover with plastic wrap, place the pot lid on top, and store in the freezer for up to two months. When you want to prepare it, take the pot out of the freezer, and let the kubaneh dough thaw and rise.
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