Poğaça (Turkish Cheese Pastry): Secret to Divine Mornings

The whole week I am playing a kitchen patroness. Because I am replacing one. Anne has got her cancer treatment and at a rehabilitation right now. She would not be able to go outside for a few weeks. When leaving she said, “Now, you are on duty“. And so I am. I thought it would be straightforward but more often than not I wish she was nearby so I could show her my cookies dough and ask whether the texture was right. And so on.

But I am nailing it down. Last night I realized that 80% of over the dozen courses we served for dinner were made by me. I guess if the customers of Zeliş Çifliği had realized that this young foreign woman feeding them many would have been shocked. Because Turkish food is such a sacred domain and outsiders have no clue. Anyway, making food was a breeze. Until came the morning baking.

Baking for our weekend buffets is the right reserved exclusively by anne. Like any Turkish woman she derives a lot of pride in turning fresh pastry to go with breakfast, snack on with afternoon tea, offer as a welcome to our guests and bring to anyone she is visiting. To meet all those needs she has a rather varied repertoire of all things baked: her hand-written recipe journal covers mostly pastry and every weekend she’d make a few types of börek, few cookies, poğaça and a cake on Sunday. Now and then as-a-matter-of-factly she turns a spicy bread she’d call Maraş çoreği or mahlep flavored cookies typical for Anamur, her home base in Mediterranean. And everyone is left speechless munching the deliciousness. So this weekend I was to match this not to disappoint our customers and very demanding family.

What’s helpful enough - I have always intimidated by the baking. Two years ago I did some 10 trials to come up with a decent recipe for kurabiye, Turkish cookies. They were everything - too dry, over-baked, still a little wet inside, too crumbly - everything but how they should be. After 10 attempts (when I could not look at the cookies any more) I sort of figured it out. And left it there. Mostly because I was still traumatized by the experience. And overstuffed with the results of all my trials. And because anne was doing all the baking anyway. And because there are 6 great pastry shops near my house in Istanbul.

In time I got back to baking but mostly in bread and cake department. With bread I went freestyle immediately learning the technique and texture from observing anne. And with cakes I have been very loyal to David Lebovitz whose recipes are so fail-proof and such crowd-pleasers. The carrot cake, Devil food cake, upside down cake and lemon tart have been all very easy and very pleasant feats repeated on the number of appropriate (and not very much so) occasions. My enthusiasm in cake making was very much need-driven: I am skeptical about Turkish love for vegetable shorteners (aka margarine) and vegetable oil often times used in cakes while I prefer to go full-butter. I don’t eat cakes often but when I do there must be butter.

So this weekend I was not worried about the cake, I delegated börek to our kitchen helper, kurabiye I could handle but I have never made poğaça before. Here I have to introduce you to poğaça really. If there is a single pastry that carries the philosophy of Turkish baking then it definitely is poğaça. What croissant is for French poğaça is for the Turks. A plump parcel with crumbly white cheese packed inside. It can be done palm-size of yeast dough while if you make it without yeast it will be knocked down in two bites. Poğaça is perfect with tea and so it is a Turkish breakfast staple. I can safely assume that at least the half of Istanbul dwellers eat one on any given morning. And anne does a great one.

The problem is - there is no recipe. Last time when late Saturday night I realized we had not made the poğaça dough and called anne to find out the recipe she came down to do it herself. Three people offered her help and she refused all. I watched her and without much surprise had realized there was no recipe and all the measurements were done by the eye. The only thing I could do it to take some approximate notes (and I would love to know where I put that piece of paper) and to touch the dough at the end - it was very very soft I remember.

So with those lost notes and sensation of the very very soft dough I started my experiments earlier this week to be ready by Saturday. The idea was to rule out all the unknowns and get a winning recipe that would get me close to anne’s poğaça. First goes the butter: the pack of butter is standard here in Turkey, 250g and it is a full serving size for us that yields 40 poğaça. Then comes the sunflower oil - I reasoned that oil is too much the poğaça will turn be to dry and you don’t want shortbread feel to your poğaça. Then yogurt and eggs - they are the ingredients softening the dough and bring it together - with all the butter and oil it makes sense to be generous with yogurt and eggs. Of course, salt. Of course, baking soda. And then flour - with which you need to be very very humble to leave the dough very very soft. Four trials down with different proportions, different size and baking times I have it - my recipe of anne’s poğaça. With 40 breakfast eaters we hosted today and only 2 poğaças left I can say that is is your money-back guarantee poğaça recipe to go.