I stumbled upon this great website, www.talesofjewishsudan.com that offers beautiful insights, stories and recipes from the Jewish community in Sudan. With their permission, I’m sharing their recipe for shorek, a delicious cross between challah and brioche.

These delicious buns are a cross between Challah and Brioche.  They are light, fluffy, and absolutely heavenly with a cup of tea.  The recipe was given to me by Frida Sweid – a lovely lady with a serene, calming aura who was born in Egypt and moved to Sudan to live with her husband when she got married.  She had a list of ingredients written down for Shorek but had forgotten the method, since it had been so long since she had made these buns (which were often eaten lightly toasted for breakfast).  Armed with my mother, several recipes for brioche, several more recipes for Challah and a lot more than 500g of flour, I set out to try and bring Frida’s recipe to life once again. 

Shorek

Time: 5-6 hours
Makes 12 pieces of shorek

Ingredients

500 g Flour
7 g Dried Yeast
1 tsp. Baking powder
Pinch of salt
80 g Sugar
100 g Sultanas
100 g Margarine (at room temperature)
2 Eggs (plus 1 for glazing)
2 tsp Lemon juice
2 tbsp. Orange Blossom water
1 tsp. Vanilla essence
3 tbsp. Brandy
100 ml Water
Zest of 2 Tangerines
Sesame Seeds for sprinkling on top

Method

1)    In a bowl whisk the eggs, orange blossom water, vanilla, lemon juice, zest & sugar together until the mixture is light and fluffy
2)    Sieve flour into a larger bowl and make crumble with the margarine
3)    Add the sugar, baking powder, yeast, and salt to the crumble
4)    Add the egg mixture and combine
5)    Add the water gradually, until the dough is a very soft and sticky texture
6)    Knead for 10 minutes until the dough is light and stretchy
7)    Add sultanas and knead again until combined
8)    Cover the bowl and leave to rise for 2-3 hours
9)    Shape into dough into balls and arrange in a baking tin
10)   Cover again, and leave to rise for 1 more hour
11)    Glaze with an egg and sprinkle sesame seeds on top
12)    Bake for 35-50 minutes until golden brown