- Okay, this looks great.

- And not hard to make.

but it's very different and very, very good.

- Look at these.

It's got beautiful notes of toasty sesame seeds.

It's the kind of bread that you will eat in the morning, and then you'll be thinking about that afternoon to go back to for a snack.

- It's really light, soft and chewy.

You're definitely going to want to make this one at home.

- Mm.

- Isn't that amazing?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Here at Milk Street, we bake a lot of breads, recipes from all over the world, which has really opened up the possibilities for us in terms of what bread baking can be.

Now, we start with a German recipe, kürbisbrot, which is a winter squash bread.

Then in Palestine there's a sweet bread with turmeric called ka'ak asfar.

And finally we do a Chinese sesame scallion bread, which is a thicker, lighter version of the well-known scallion pancake.

Please stay tuned.

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All-Clad-- for all your kitchen adventures.

♪ ♪ - So I thought I knew something about German-Austrian baking, but it turns out I really didn't know very much.

I got hold of a book called Classic German Baking by Luisa Weiss, and there's all this stuff.

that's really interesting, like this one.

kürbisbrot, which is a pumpkin bread.

I'd never heard of it, we made it and we fell in love with it.

So we're not using pumpkin?

- No, we're not using pumpkin.

- We're using squash.

That is not a pumpkin!

(laughs) We roasted this at a 425 degree oven for about 40 minutes.

Such a big squash.

But this really makes the recipe.

Do not want to use the canned stuff.

It's just bland.

So it's worth the extra step to go ahead and do this.

But if you wouldn't mind going ahead and scooping out some of that and mashing it up, and then we just need a cup.

Not only does it add a really nice color to this bread, but it adds just a touch of sweetness, but like, a lot of, like, these pumpkin breads that we've seen, they're just kind of overly sweet or they have, like, way too many spices in them.

But this is very similar to, like, a brioche-style bread, so it's very tender.

It's very lightly spiced, lightly sweetened.

It's traditionally eaten with savory things like meats and cheeses.

We also really liked it to make French toast.

- All right.

- Great, and, yup go ahead and put that in the other bowl.

So we have two eggs.

And we're going to add just a little bit of sweetness.

We're going to add two tablespoons of honey, and that just kind of brings out the sweetness of the squash.

The bread is definitely not going to taste sweet.

And then a quarter cup of whole milk - Okay.

- If you just whisk those together.

Well, while you're doing that, I guess I can get started.

So here we have a little over three cups of all-purpose flour, and I'm just going to go ahead and add a teaspoon of instant yeast, teaspoon of salt.

And then we're adding just a little bit of allspice, that's three-quarters of a teaspoon.

Again, it's not going to taste like overly spiced.

It just brings out the flavors of the squash.

I'm just going to mix this on low to incorporate.

And if you wouldn't mind, Chris, we can add all of our wet ingredients.

- Okay.

Okay.

- Great.

We're just going to go ahead and mix this for a couple of minutes until it all comes together.

It's going to form a very wet, very lumpy dough.

All right, so that's been a couple of minutes, and you can see the dough is fairly lumpy and shaggy, but we want to make sure that all the flour has been incorporated with the squash mixture.

Now I'm going to increase the speed to medium, and we're going to mix it for about five minutes.

Okay, Chris, I'm just going to scrape this down now.

We're about halfway through, but you can see how wet and sticky this dough is.

- I was going to say something rude, like this does not look like a bread dough to me.

- No, I know, right?

(laughs) We're gonna finish mixing, another couple minutes.

Okay, that looks much better.

You can see it's starting to clear the sides of the bowl.

When it was mixing, you can kind of hear it slapping around.

That's a good sign that it's ready.

So now we're going to be adding four tablespoons of nice, soft room temperature butter.

You kind of want it to be the same consistency as the dough, so I'm going to turn this back on to medium, I'm going to add the pieces one by one.

So I'm going to wait about 30 seconds after each addition, and we're going to mix in all the butter.

Okay, all the butter's been added, I'm going to give it one last scrape.

Okay, but we're not done.

We're going to continue mixing for another seven to nine minutes.

until the dough becomes really, really, really stretchy.

Okay, this looks great.

You can tell it's really clearing the sides of the bowl.

It looks really smooth and shiny, and you can just see how incredibly stretchy the dough is.

Here I have a large bowl, and I've sprayed it with cooking spray.

So that's it, and I'm going to cover this with plastic wrap.

I'm going to let it rise for an hour out at room temperature.

Then I'm going to go ahead and put it in the fridge, and we're going to chill it for at least four hours.

Otherwise, the dough would be really sticky, and it would be way too difficult to shape and work with.

Okay, Chris, so this has been chilling in the fridge for four hours.

You can see how much it's risen, which is great.

- I'm going to touch it.

- Yeah, you can go ahead.

See, I mean, right?

- It's not sticky.

- It looked like it was going to be impossible to work with, but it's really not.

But we are going to flour the countertop just a little bit.

Okay, now sometimes this bread traditionally is shaped into, like, a round, but we really liked sort of festive look of a braided loaf.

So that's what we're gonna do.

All right, I'm going to cut it.

- Thirds?

- Yeah, I'm gonna cut into thirds.

That's just the approach I like to take.

All right, I'm going to give one to you.

And so basically we're just going to roll this into a long rope.

About 18-inches long.

Which seems a lot longer than you think, but it does shorten when you, once you braid it up.

I like to taper the ends a little bit too.

- So is this long, I mean, - Yeah, I think that's good.

Make sure they're the same length.

There we go.

That's pretty good.

Okay, so I'm just going to line them up in front of me.

I'm going to pinch them together really well at one end.

That's going to be the side of our braid.

And then we're just going to fold one piece between the other two pieces, and then the outside piece goes in, and so on.

And then when you get to the end, the end pieces that you have left over, we're just going to pinch those and then tuck them under.

And then we're going to transfer that.

It's about twelve inches long by the time we're done.

Which is a good size loaf.

- That's pretty cool.

- Yeah, and then we're going to go ahead and let this rise a second time.

I'm going to cover it with plastic wrap that's been sprayed, also with cooking spray, just so it doesn't stick to the surface.

- Right.

- And then we're going to go ahead and cover that plastic wrap with a kitchen towel just to make sure the dough does not dry out.

And we're going to let it rise until it's about doubled in size.

It's going to take about an hour and a half.

Okay, Chris, so it's been an hour and a half and our dough has doubled in size.

So here's the big reveal.

Look at that, isn't that amazing?

This looks great.

And it's nice and light and airy.

So if you could go ahead and beat that egg, we're just going to brush the top of the loaf with a little bit of egg wash. You want to be gentle when you're applying an egg wash to a dough like this, because it's very delicate and you don't want to deflate it.

This is going to be so beautiful when it's baked.

As a nice little touch, we're going to go ahead and sprinkle, these are not butternut squash seeds, they're actually pumpkin seeds or pepitas.

We just chop them up roughly, about three tablespoons, and we're gonna just sprinkle them.

They're gonna stick right on there because of that egg wash. Nice decorative touch, also a nice little crunch.

All right, and that's it.

And this is ready to go into our 350 degree oven.

And it's going to bake for about 30, 35 minutes.

It's going to be nice and golden brown.

You want to look for an internal temperature of between 190 and 200 degrees, and then we know it's done.

- Okay.

So never has so much come out of so little.

- And look at this, this is a beautiful masterpiece.

I absolutely love the way this looks, and I love especially how it pulls away right in the center there.

And you can get a peek at that beautiful butternut squash color.

So I'm really excited to try it.

When I took it out of the oven, I let it cool for ten minutes, and then I slid it onto a wire rack on the parchment still, and then I let it cool completely.

So it's room temperature now, and I'm just going to slide it onto the cutting board.

Gonna dig in.

And look at what else I prepared for you.

This is a very traditional way of how this bread would be served.

We have several different kinds of ham here and cheese and butter as well.

I really like the combination of butter and ham, which does not mean you can't just toast it, or use it in French toast.

Look at that crumb.

You can see how feathery it is from all that mixing and from incorporating that room temperature butter.

- Can I just eat it?

- Yeah, you can just eat it.

- Mm, it's not too sweet.

It looks like it would be a sweet bread, like a quick loaf, it's not.

- Right.

- And it has a really deep flavor to it.

- Really nice.

You can taste that allspice, you get the flavor of the butternut squash, but not, like, overwhelmingly sweet at all.

- So another example of, you know, classic German baking I didn't know existed, kürbisbrot.

It's a sort of German-style winter squash bread, braided, so it looks great when it comes out of the oven, and not hard to make, but it's very different and very, very good.

- Mm-hm, it's delicious - Thank you.

- You're welcome!

♪ ♪ - We first tasted the Palestinian yellow bread called ka'ak aspar, aspar meaning yellow, at a bakery in Palestine.

It's sold in flat, round disks from dough that's tinted a gorgeous golden yellow hue from turmeric.

Once baked, it's soft and billowy and just slightly sweet with layers of flavor from different seeds and from a spice called mahlab.

Mahlab is used throughout the Middle East.

It has beautiful floral notes and an almond essence.

For our version of this bread, we consulted with cookbook author Reem Kassis.

She has her own version of this recipe in her book, The Palestinian Table.

This is a yeasted bread, but it's mostly one step for the dough with a very short rising period, so it's very easy to do.

And we're going to get started by mixing all the dry ingredients together.

So far in the mixer, we have the all-purpose flour to that we'll add a little bit of sugar.

We'll add our dry instant yeast.

The salt, and the color, turmeric.

Then let's talk about the seeds.

We're using three different types of seeds for this bread.

We have a combination of white and black sesame seeds.

They've been toasted lightly in a skillet till they're just barely golden, and then we've let them cool, so they're sitting here cooled.

And we're going to add them to the flour.

And then we're using two different types of seeds in addition to the sesame seeds.

One of them is anise seed, which are different than star anise.

Anise seeds are a little bit sweeter with a similar licorice taste.

I'm putting them in a mortar and pestle.

I'm adding to that nigella seeds.

Nigella seeds are these tiny little black seeds.

They resemble poppy seeds, but they taste very different.

They have a more herbal quality to them.

Going to add those in.

Now we're going to crush these slightly.

You don't want to grind them down to a fine powder.

You just want to sort of crack open the seeds, which releases some of their flavor.

I'm going to just very briefly pound these.

If you don't have a mortar and pestle, you can do this in a small spice grinder, just be careful to pulse it a few times, instead of letting it go and get too powdery, We'll add these to our dry ingredients.

Okay.

So we have all of those together, and we're going to let this mix for about a minute until everything is fully blended.

While that's going, we'll mix together the wet ingredients.

We have a little bit of water here.

We're going to add a half a cup of olive oil.

Instead of mahlab, we're using something that's much easier to source, and that's a little bit of almond extract, just a touch, about a quarter teaspoon.

Okay.

Let's just get this from the sides.

There we go.

Okay, we'll turn this back on low and then slowly pour in the wet ingredients.

So that needs to go for about seven to ten minutes to get fully blended.

I would resist adding extra flour until the seven-minute mark, because sometimes as the dough develops gluten, it will tighten up a little bit.

So it looks very wet now, but by the end of seven minutes, it might not need any more flour.

Okay, our dough looks ready.

So turn this off, lift it up to show you.

You can see it's very soft.

It still looks like it's too wet, but if you can touch it like this, and your fingers come away pretty free of dough, then you know you're ready.

All right, we'll just scrape this down.

Now we're going to transfer this to a lightly oiled bowl.

Just spread a little bit of any type of neutral oil in here.

Brush it to distribute.

You want to get the oil all the way up the sides of the bowl so the dough doesn't stick.

Okay, there we go.

You can see the color is a beautiful golden hue.

Deeply yellow.

And the speckles of the seeds.

I can smell this dough even raw.

It's got beautiful notes of licorice, toasty sesame seeds, sort of nutty in flavor.

And that little bit of almond extract.

So we'll let that go.

Sort of get it into a ball shape, and just flip it over so that the top is nicely oiled.

You can also brush a little extra oil over at the top if you want.

Now, this bowl needs to be covered tightly, either with plastic wrap or a plate on top, then set it aside in a not-too-cold place to let it rise for about an hour, and then we will be ready to shape the discs.

Look at this dough.

You can see it's clearly doubled in size.

All right, so we're just going to very gently remove it from the bowl.

Just do a little bit of flour, you don't want too much.

There we go.

Okay, let it fall out.

There we go.

Okay, now I like to put this in a long shape because then it makes it easier to divide it evenly.

We're going to divide this into four pieces.

See there.

Okay.

Going to set these off to the side, working one at a time.

Turn it over, and you want to shake these into a ball.

You want to get it as tight as possible.

I'll show you a couple of different ways to do that.

One is to roll it back and forth, pressing down on the bottom of the board as you do it.

And you get a nice, tight little ball, set that there.

Another is you can pull up the sides like this, and just press them down into the center.

There we go, and then you have that tight seam on the bottom.

Flip it over and you have another little ball.

All right, so once they're all shaped into balls, we'll then, one at a time, press them flat.

You want them to end up about three-quarters of an inch thick.

You can see how easy and pliable this dough is.

And then we'll transfer them to a sheet tray.

This piece of parchment has been lightly greased with oil.

We'll stagger them a little bit so they don't touch each other right now.

Here we go, now we're going to dimple these with the tips of our fingers.

We're simply going to make impressions like that.

This helps ensure that they don't overrise, and it also gives them a little bit of a design-- like that.

Okay, once they're all dimpled, just cover them very loosely with plastic wraps.

Set them aside to rise before they go into the oven.

Takes about 30 minutes till they're ready, and meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400 degrees because you want it nice and hot when these are ready to go in.

Okay, it's been about a half-hour.

Look at these.

Puffy, it's okay that they're touching just a little bit, they're going to rise even more in the oven.

Now, our oven is nice and hot at 400 degrees.

These only take 12 to 15 minutes to bake, so they bake pretty quickly, and they'll get a beautiful golden brown on the top.

Okay, so when they come out of the oven, you transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely, or almost completely, if you're a warm bread person like me.

And then you're ready to serve it, you just slice it.

You can slice it in wedges or slices like this.

Any way you slice it, I think if you try this bread, you are going to like it.

We have a little bit of soft, salted butter here, which you can never go wrong with on bread.

One of my favorite ways to eat this bread is for breakfast in the morning.

If you have a little bit of Greek-style yogurt and honey, it is fantastic with this bread.

Mm.

The texture of this bread is a huge part of its appeal, aside from the flavor.

It has a soft, billowy texture, but a really nice amount of chew from the yeast in the dough.

And it has a little bit of stretch to it.

This is our Palestinian-style turmeric bread.

Beautiful golden yellow from the turmeric, delicious flavors from all the different seeds in it.

It's the kind of bread that you will eat in the morning and then you'll be thinking about that afternoon to go back to for a snack.

It's that good.

♪ ♪ - Chinese sesame scallion bread, or zhima dabing, is not quite as popular as its cousin, the scallion pancake.

It comes from the northwestern part of China, where flatbreads rather than rice are much more popular.

While it tastes like a scallion pancake, it is not at all like one in texture.

It's a yeast bread, so it's really light, soft and chewy, and the outside is crispy and coated with sesame seeds.

It's a really great bread to learn how to make at home.

So we're going to start with our dry ingredients.

Now, in China the flour has a lot less gluten than here, so it is able to kind of achieve that really particular texture where it's both soft and chewy at the same time.

So we had to really search out to try to figure out how to recreate that texture with what we had available to us.

So I have one-and-two-thirds cups of all-purpose flour, and to that I'm going to add a quarter-cup of sweet rice flour.

Keeps it really nice and soft, but adds the chewiness to it like you would want from a bread.

To this I'm going to add a teaspoon of instant yeast or rapid rise yeast, and then a half a teaspoon of salt.

Just get that mixed together.

And then I have three-quarters of a cup of warm water and a tablespoon of honey.

So I'm going to turn the mixer on low, and add this very slowly as it mixes together.

And that looks pretty good.

Okay, I'm just going to check this to see how sticky it is, just to see if I need to add a little bit more flour.

This is sticky, but I wouldn't say it's too sticky.

And you don't want to add too much flour here.

So we're going to let this knead in the mixer for another four minutes.

You want it to be slightly tacky, but not stick to your fingers.

All right, this looks like it might be ready.

So when you poke it with your finger, you want to be able to pull your finger out without getting any of the dough.

And that looks pretty good.

Should still be kind of tacky, though.

You don't want it really dry.

This is a really nice, moist bread.

All right, I'm going to add a little bit of sesame oil to the bowl.

Kind of spread that around.

This is going to prevent it from sticking when I add the dough.

Okay.

Want to coat both sides of the dough.

Okay, I'm going to cover this and let it rise for about an hour.

We want to see this double in size.

All right, so the bread has been rising for an hour.

You can see it's very puffy.

I'm going to let it sit there for just a second while I prep the scallions.

So we're going to trim off the edges here a little bit.

And then just slice them.

I'm going to then go back through with the knife and cut them down a little bit more.

I want them to be pretty small.

Great, now transfer them to this bowl.

To the scallions, I'm going to add two teaspoons of sesame oil.

Let's give that a toss.

Now we can form the dough.

So this sheet tray has a teaspoon of sesame oil on it.

That's going to prevent this dough from sticking.

And I'm just going to press it into about a twelve-by-nine-inch rectangle.

Now we can add the scallions.

And then a little bit of salt, a quarter teaspoon.

Now we're going to roll this up, Pinch the seam here, And then turn it into a coil.

And kind of tuck the end underneath.

You've got this little almost snail shape.

And then we're going to sprinkle this with sesame seeds, this is two tablespoons.

Then flip it over and add some more sesame seeds.

Now you want to make sure that these are not already toasted.

This is going to be cooked on the stove top in a skillet, and so we don't want those sesame seeds to burn.

Okay, now I'm going to press this out, and don't worry too much if some of the scallion pops through, that's fine.

This should be about ten inches.

I'm going to add two tablespoons of oil to this nonstick skillet.

And then just swirl that to make sure it's fully coated.

Don't want the dough to stick.

And then very extra carefully, try to transfer this dough over here.

You'll probably have to press it a little bit more once it's in the pan.

And now I'm going to cover this.

It's going to rise for about 30 minutes till it's doubled in size, and then we will cook it on the stovetop.

All right, so the dough has been rising for about 30 minutes.

I can see it's really nice and puffy in there.

That's going to create a great textured bread.

We're going to cook this in a cold skillet to start so that will allow the inside of the bread to cook through before the bottom gets too brown.

So I'm going to turn the heat on to medium, and we'll let this go for about five or six minutes until that bottom side is really nice and golden brown.

All right, it's been about six minutes.

The smell of this bread is killing me, I want to eat it so badly.

So I'm going to shove this under and then flip it over.

We've got some really nice browning there.

So we're going to let that cook on the other side for about three minutes.

So it's been about three minutes.

I'm going to pull this off the heat, and then transfer it to the cooling rack.

It's going to cool for a very long ten minutes, and then we get to eat it.

So this looks amazing.

You can smell the scallions in there and the sesame seeds on the outside.

I just can't wait to dive in.

You taste those scallions and the sesame seeds are nicely toasted on the outside.

It's got a crispy exterior, and the inside is so nice and soft, and you can almost see how chewy it is.

So Chinese sesame scallion bread-- you're definitely going to want to make this one at home.

You can get this recipe and all of the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

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♪ ♪