Why It Works
- Nigella seed and floor mahlab give this bread its distinctive, intoxicating aroma and taste.
- The inclusion of a tangzhong (cooked flour paste) lends the choereg a young, fluffy crumb, and dramatically slows down staling.
- A 30-minute autolyse earlier than the addition of salt or butter to the dough helps construct gluten on this high-hydration, excessive butter components.
- Including chilly, cubed butter in the beginning of blending lets the dough construct power whereas the butter slowly softens and will get included into it.
- The dough will proceed to develop power because it ferments, so don’t fear if it appears overly sticky or slack when mixing is full.
- An extended, chilly fermentation lends the bread taste whereas making the high-hydration dough straightforward to form.
Choreg—typically spelled choroeg, cheoreg, or chorek in English—is an Armenian candy bread that has a particular, intoxicating aroma because of inclusion of nigella and mahlab. It is historically served round Easter, because it’s meant to be an indulgence after winter and Lent, however many Armenians eat it year-round as properly. It may be fashioned into particular person spherical or knotted rolls, and—extra generally—into lengthy braided loaves, and the braids are sometimes made with three strands of dough, to symbolize the Holy Trinity. Choreg can also be made and eaten in Greece (the place it is generally known as tsoureki and is normally flavored with mastic), Turkey (paskalya çöreği), and elsewhere, although its flavors and shapes fluctuate from nation to nation.
Choreg is usually referred to as “Armenian brioche,” due to the big quantity of butter and eggs within the dough; it additionally attracts comparisons to challah, due to the eggs, and the truth that it is fashioned into braids. However in contrast to brioche or challah, choreg dough additionally accommodates a excessive proportion of sugar, typically exceeding 20%. (Armenians are usually not recognized for doing issues in half-measures, significantly on the subject of celebrations and celebratory meals.) And, in contrast to challah and brioche, choreg accommodates nigella seed and mahlab.
Nigella and Mahlab: Choreg’s Essential Spices
Nigella is referred to variously as “black cumin,” “black caraway,” “onion seed,” “black sesame,” and even “fennel flower,” though it is not botanically associated to any of these spices and greens. Nigella is splendidly advanced, and while you absorb its notes of citrus, pine, and menthol, you may see why it is in comparison with so many different spices. Nigella can also be bitter, which is why it is nearly all the time left entire relatively than floor right into a powder, so its aroma can infuse a dish with out the bitter taste taking on.
Mahlab, in the meantime, is created from the tiny seeds of the St. Lucy’s cherry (Prunus mahaleb), a tree native to the Mediterranean, Iran, and elements of Central Asia. As a result of the seeds are extraordinarily laborious, they’re all the time floor right into a positive powder earlier than use*. It’s used all through the Jap Mediterranean and Center East as a flavoring for breads, muffins, cookies, and sweets. (In Syria, it is usually used to taste string cheese.) Like nigella, its taste is fragrant and complicated, drawing comparisons to cherry, almond, vanilla, and rose. And like nigella, mahlab is bitter on the end.
*The oils in mahlab are extraordinarily fast to oxidize and switch rancid if uncovered to air, so the entire seeds are finest saved in a sealed container within the freezer and floor in a spice mill simply earlier than use. If you happen to can solely discover floor mahlab, use it quickly after buy, and retailer the rest within the freezer.
Tips of the Commerce: Using Tangzhong
My choreg recipe adheres to the spirit of the very best ones I’ve tried, nevertheless it incorporates a couple of trendy bread baking tips to enhance its texture and make the dough simpler to work with.
For starters, I incorporate a tangzhong (also called yukone), or cooked flour paste, into my dough, which makes a extra tender crumb and improves the bread’s shelf life.
A tangzhong is made by heating a small portion of the flour and liquid from the dough till the starches within the flour gel, forming a thick, pudding-like paste. This paste is then added to the dough, however as a result of the water within the paste is sure up throughout the starches, the tangzhong provides moisture with out making the feel of the dough wetter. In different phrases, utilizing a tangzhong paste can enhance the hydration of a bread with out turning the dough right into a sticky mess. (If you happen to have been to make a dough with the very same proportions of flour and liquids, however skip the tangzhong step, you’d find yourself with one thing nearer to soup.) That additional “hidden” water makes the cooked loaf softer in texture.
The added moisture from the tangzhong additionally helps with staling, significantly with very sugary doughs. Since sugar is hygroscopic, which means it attracts water to itself, the comparatively great amount of sugar in doughs like this choreg pulls water away from the starches, inflicting them to crystallize and harden. Utilizing a tanzhong means the sugar now has extra water to suck up.
I additionally use extra egg and milk than many different choreg recipes do (even accounting for the additional water within the tangzhong), to additional enhance the softness of the crumb and its longevity. Doing so does depart me with a sticky, moist dough—one thing that usually would make shaping a braided loaf unattainable. However I exploit a easy trick to sidestep this: I transfer the dough into the fridge in a single day earlier than shaping it. As soon as the dough is chilly, it takes on an easy-to-handle, Play Doh–like consistency. (Refrigeration additionally stretches out the fermentation, giving the bread a extra advanced taste.)
I added an autolyse step to the recipe to assist construct extra construction in a dough, which helps it to comprise a lot butter and milk. By resting the dough for half-hour earlier than including salt and butter, the flour has an opportunity to hydrate absolutely and start to passively develop gluten, even earlier than the blending actually begins.
Including the Butter
Lastly, I exploit a genius trick that my professional-baker good friend Jess just lately taught me: Moderately than including softened butter to the dough after many of the gluten has been developed, slightly at a time—the standard technique for making brioche and different high-butter doughs—I simply add fridge-cold, cubed butter into the dough proper in the beginning of blending. The butter softens steadily whereas the dough develops, slowly getting labored into it, in order that by the point the butter is absolutely included, the dough is almost absolutely blended. And the chilly butter truly serves one other objective: it counteracts the friction of blending to maintain the dough from overheating.
Whereas choreg is an Easter bread, the actual fact is that the Armenians I do know like it a lot that they make it year-round. When you strive it, I believe you’ll too.