Bread 

A variety of breads is prepared in Azerbaijan, ranging from the paper-thin sheets of "lavash" to the dark, round, whole-wheat Russian-style loaves - karpij chorak (brick bread), agh chorak (white bread) and gara chorak (black bread). You can also find damiryol chorayi (railroad bread) and bulka (a slightly sweet bread roll). Fresh bread is bought daily from the local bakery or at distribution points nearby.

The bread pictured here is called "tandir chorayi" (oven-bread). Bread is a "must" with every meal and serves as one of the main sources of carbohydrates in the Azerbaijani diet. Bread is usually sliced and set beside each individual plate. Generally, for guests, tandir chorayi is preferred.

During Soviet times, bread was made in state-owned factories. It was a substantial, round loaf weighing more than a pound. Since independence, more and more private bakeries have opened up. Loaves are becoming smaller now that people are more conscious of their weight. One popular type is a Turkish-style white bread (turk chorayi), similar to a French baguette.

Certain breads disappeared from Azerbaijan following the Soviet takeover in 1920, including sangak, which is a flatbread (usually about 20 x 40 inches long) made from whole wheat sourdough and baked in a tandir oven. (See photo essay, page 45, where the sangak is hung up on display.) Because sangak is made by hand, the Soviets opted for mass production of loaves, and sangak soon passed into oblivion. Fortunately, sangak is still widely available in Iran (South Azerbaijan). 

Shakerbura

Top grade wheat flour - 240 g; butter oil - 60 g; whole milk - 80 g; egg - 1; yeasts - 8 g; shelled almonds or other nuts - 200 g; sugar - 200 g; cardamon -0.4 g; salt to taste. 

Heat milk to a temperature of 30-35 °C, add yeasts, salt, egg, butter oil and sieved flour and make a dough. Leave the dough to stand for 1-1.5 hours, divide it into 30 g balls and roll into small round pieces 2 cm thick. Put the filling in the middle of each round piece, fold up and plait the edges. Decorate with an ornament and bake for 25-30 minutes at a temperature of 160-180 °C.

To make the filling, grate shelled roasted almonds or walnuts and mix with sugar in a ratio of 1:1.

Pakhlava

Top grade wheat flour - 240 g; butter oil - 60 g; whole milk - 80 g; egg - 1; yeasts - 8 g; shelled almonds or other nuts -200 g; sugar -200 g; vanilin -0.2 g; saffron -0.4 g; honey - 20 g.

 Prepare the dough and filling as you do it for shakerbura. Roll the dough 0.5 mm thick. Put a sheet of dough on a greased tray, spread a 3-4 mm layer of filling over it and cover with another sheet of dough, grease the dough and spread a layer of filling. Continue in this way until you have 8-10 layers.

Cut pakhlava into diamond-shaped pieces of 10x4 cm and brush with egg yellow mixed with saffron. Place half of a nut kernel or pistache in the middle of each lozenge and bake for 35-40 minutes at a temperature of 180-200 °C. Glaze pakhlava with syrop or honey 15 minutes before it is ready.

Ovma-sheki fyatir

Wheat flour -617 g; sugar -195 g; butter - 74 g; fresh milk or matsoni -150 g; yeasts - 10 g; a mixture of spices (cardamon, ginger, coriander seeds, cinnamon, nutmeg) - 5 g; eggs - 2; saffron -0.1 g; poppy seeds - 3 g; salt to taste.

 Make rich sponge dough. Use poppy seeds, egg yellow and part of the saffron infusion for decorating ovma. When the dough rises, divide it into portions of 70-80 g and roll into cakes 15-20 mm thick and measuring 180-190 mm in diameter. Adorn with an ornament and leave for 25-30 minutes. Brush with an egg diluted with saffron infusion and sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake for 30-35 minutes at a temperature of 190-220 °C.

"Azerbaijan fruits" pastry

Top grade flour - 5 glasses; granulated sugar - 2 glasses; eggs - 4; sour cream - 200 g; butter - 200 g; soda - 1 teaspoonfuL To decorate the top: clove - 10 buds; saffron -0.5 g; 1 medium-size beet; granulated sugar - 100 g.

Whip eggs with granulated sugar, add butter and mix thoroughly. Mix soda with sour cream and add to the whipped mass. Add flour by small portions and mix the mass. Shape round and oval pieces of varying size and bake for 10-12 minutes at a temperature of 190-210 °C.
Pair the hot pieces by joining them with whipped egg white.

Colour the pastry with saffron (peaches, apricot) infusion and beet (plum, peach) juice and roll in granulated sugar. Form the sepals of these dough pears by sticking a clove bud to each pear before baking. Colour one side of the pear with saffron infusion and the other with beet juice and roll in granulated sugar.

Halva from malt

Hand-picked wheat - 100 g; wheat flour - 500 g; butter oil - 100 g; doshab(must) - 200 g; shelled walnuts -100 g; anise - 2 g; pepper - 1 g; cinnamon -2 g-Malt the wheat grains.

 The malt should be yellow and not green. Put the malt through the mincer, strain the mass and use the strained juice to make dough. Boil the dough in a big pan on a slow fire, stirring continuously and adding butter so that it does not stick to the bottom. Boil the dough for not less than four hours. At the end add crushed walnuts, spices and doshab and mix thoroughly. Give thus prepared halva the shape of a meat-ball.

Sweet nazuk

Top grade flour - 700 g; butter oil - 200 g; sugar powder -115 g; egg yellow -1; yeasts - 2 g; saffron - 0.03 g; salt - 1.5 g.

Make straight yeast dough from 520 g of flour and 90 g of butter with the addition of salt. To prepare the filling, take 70 g of butter oil, add sugar powder and saffron infusion and mix thoroughly. Add 140 g of flour and make a homogeneous mass by stirring continuously. Roll the prepared dough into rectangular sheets 3-5 mm thick, brush with the remaining butter oil and knead several times to obtain puff paste. Put the filling in the middle of the sheet, bend the edges towards the centre and roll the paste to a thickness of 10-12 mm. Brush with egg yellow and bake for 25-30 minutes at a temperature of 200-220 °C.

Bamiya

Top grade flour -527 g; granulated sugar - 235 g; egg - 1; vegetable oil -120 g; soda -0.5 g; salt.

 Make dough with the addition of soda and boiling water. After cooling, beat in an egg. Put the dough through the mincer which, instead of the cutting blade and perforated plate, has a 0.15 mm thick plate with a finely serrated aperture 10-12 mm in diameter. Cut the fluted braid coming from the mincer into 7-8 cm lengths. Fry in friture, plunge into sugar syrup and sprinkle with sugar powder after drying.