Actually very easy

Bazlama

The beliefBazlama is assumed to be village bread that needs a griddle and a wood fire.

The truthBazlama is bread dough cooked in a pan instead of an oven. The only difference is that the heat comes from one side.

2 hours

How to make it

What you need

500 g flour
325 ml warm water
7 g dried yeast
10 g salt
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of yoghurt

How the engine read this list (6 lines)

500 g	Flour	flour
325 g	Warm water	water
7 g	Dried yeast	yeast
10 g	Salt	salt
4 g	Sugar	sugar
40 g	Yoghurt	yoghurt

An empty weight means that line could not be turned into grams — either the amount is open ("to taste") or the ingredient has no record here. Neither enters the sum as zero; they do not enter it at all.

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in 100 ml of the warm water and leave it ten minutes; it should froth.
Bring the flour, salt, yoghurt, yeast water and the rest of the water together and knead for ten minutes. The dough will be soft and slightly tacky.
Cover it and let it rise for an hour.
Divide into six, shape into balls and rest them twenty minutes, then press them out by hand to 15 cm across and a centimetre and a half thick.
Heat a dry pan over a medium flame and cook each side four minutes. The middle should dome up.
Stack them between cloths as they come off: they soften one another.

Why it works

In an oven bread heats from every side and a crust forms all over; in a pan the heat comes only from below, which is why bazlama has to be turned and why its crust stays thin on both faces. That thin crust is the reason it is soft: a thick crust traps the water and steams the inside, a thin one cannot hold the moisture, so the dough has to start wetter. Bazlama runs at about 65% hydration, higher than ordinary bread. The second issue is the flame: medium, not high. On a high flame the outside darkens in three minutes while the middle is still at 70 °C and the starch has not fully gelatinised — that is the bazlama with a burnt face and a raw heart. The right heat gives a two-and-a-half-centimetre round about four minutes a side to bring its centre to 98 °C.

The rough sum

886 grams going in

1867 kcal in total

100% of the mass has figures behind it. This is the sum of what GOES IN rather than of what comes out. Wherever something evaporates, drains or ferments the two differ: a kilo of milk is 150 g of cheese.

Diets it qualifies for

Vegetarian

Storage & shelf life

How long it keeps

Room temperature, between cloths: 2 days
Freezer, wrapped singly: 3 months
Fridge: Not advised: staling is fastest at 4 °C
Bagged while hot: Half a day: the steam dissolves the crust

Bread goes stale not by drying but by its starch recrystallising, and that runs fastest at around 4 °C. So putting bazlama in the fridge is worse than leaving it out. The right pair is simple: if it will be eaten within two days, the counter; if not, straight to the freezer. Frozen bazlama comes back in two minutes in a pan, because recrystallised starch melts again above 60 °C.

When to bin it Fuzzy or coloured patches: throw it out, and throw out the others in the same bag — mould spreads through its threads before you can see it.

History

Where it comes from

Bazlama sits at the thick end of Anatolia’s family of griddle breads, and its name comes from the root "bas-", to press: the dough is pressed onto the iron. Where there was one oven for a neighbourhood rather than one per house, the griddle was the answer to daily bread — a fire, an iron plate and half an hour. It is still made across much of Anatolia as a breakfast bread, with yoghurt, with milk or plain depending on the region. The yoghurt version stays softer, because its acid weakens the gluten a little.

The knack

If the middle does not dome, either the round was pressed too thin or the pan is cold.
If the outside darkens fast, lower the flame and give it longer: bazlama is a slow bread.
Split a stale one and toast it: that thin crust goes crisp in a toaster.

Dough and grain