The Shoreek are Egyptian sweet buns particularly appreciated by Christians and Orthodox Christians during Easter.
Comparable to the Tsoureki: a sweet bread typical of the cuisines of Greece, the Balkans, Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, whose term derives from the Turkish çörek to describe the family of round breads to which this belongs.
I prepared them gluten-free, with a flour mix, which you can replace with the same quantity of all-purpose flour, lactose-free, with oat milk instead of cow’s milk, and with my gluten-free sourdough which you can replace with 3 teaspoons of dry yeast.
You can find the recipe with photos at the bottom of the GialloZafferano blogger colleague Sara, from Saràbuonodavvero.it with whom I collaborated in creating Shoreek through our Instagram pages.
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 4 Hours
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 6 Pieces
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Egyptian
- Seasonality: Easter, All seasons
Ingredients
- 10.5 oz gluten-free flour mix
- 3.5 oz gluten-free sourdough
- 2.5 oz sugar
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup oat milk (warm)
- to taste sesame
Steps
Add the sugar, sourdough, vegetable oil, and 1 egg to the flour. Then, slowly add the warm milk.
Knead the dough and let it rise covered for 1 hour, then take it back and apply the folds.
Repeat 4 times, letting it rise for 1 hour each time.
Divide into 6 pieces, roll them and then wrap them around themselves.
Brush with beaten egg, decorate with sesame, and bake in the oven at 350°F for 20 minutes.
Fold the dough
“Folding” refers to the folds in the dough, also called reinforcing folds.
A procedure of folding the dough over itself multiple times.
Folding the dough over itself multiple times allows to: strengthen the dough to let it grow in height; improve the structure of the gluten mesh.
FAQ
What are the ingredients of çörek?
The ingredients of çörek are: wheat flour, butter, eggs, sourdough, mahlep (a spice obtained by grinding the seeds of the prunus cerasus fruit, also known as prunus mahaleb), sugar, and salt.
Nigella sativa is almost always added to these breads, so in Turkish, it is called çörekotu.What are the ingredients of Tsoureki?
Tsoureki is a sweet bread baked with flour, milk, yeast, butter or cooking oil, eggs, vanilla, sugar, and garnished with toasted, chopped almonds and red eggs.
Spices such as mahleb, Chios mastic, and cardamom are also used to flavor it.
It is formed by overlapping braids.
This type of sweet bread is also traditional in many other nations.
Examples include badnji kruh in Croatian cuisine, folar de páscoa in Portuguese cuisine, la galette des rois in France, kulich in Russian cuisine, Easter guti in Italy, and challah in Jewish cuisine, as well as hot cross buns in Britain, cozonac in Romania, and stollen in Germany.Can I make Shoreek with wheat flour?
Sure, here is the recipe from my colleague Sara, queen of leavened products, from Sarà buono davvero? with whom I collaborated on Instagram:
300 g of flour
70 g sugar
80 g sourdough
120 ml milk and 80 ml water
1 beaten egg
Vanilla paste
5 g salt
30 g oil
✍️METHOD ✍️
⭐️Heat the milk with the vanilla paste but do not bring it to a boil. Let cool slightly.
⭐️ dissolve the sourdough in the water and add the sugar first and then the egg.
⭐️ add the flour alternating with the warm milk
⭐️ finish with the oil and finally the salt
⭐️ after a couple of hours put in the fridge
⭐️ the next day take out of the fridge and let double
⭐️ deflate and make 60 g balls, roll them and wrap them around themselves.
⭐️ let rise again then brush with some egg and sprinkle with sugar
🔥Bake at 350°F for 30/35 minutes
Find our dedicated posts on Instagram on my and her profile.
