Actually very easy

Simit

The beliefSimit is assumed to be a baker’s job, and that colour and crunch are assumed to be out of reach at home.

The truthThe colour comes not from the oven but from the dip in molasses water, and the sesame sticks to that wet surface.

2 hours 30 minutes

How to make it

What you need

500 g flour
300 ml warm water
7 g dried yeast
10 g salt
1 teaspoon of sugar
3 tablespoons of grape molasses and 200 ml water, for the dip
200 g sesame seeds

How the engine read this list (7 lines)

500 g	Flour	flour
300 g	Warm water	water
7 g	Dried yeast	yeast
10 g	Salt	salt
4 g	Sugar	sugar
60 g	Molasses, for the dip	molasses
200 g	Sesame	sesame

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.

Mix the yeast, sugar and 100 ml of the warm water and leave it ten minutes.
Bring the flour, salt, the rest of the water and the yeast water together, knead ten minutes, and let it rise for an hour.
Divide the dough into eight. Split each piece in two, roll two fifty-centimetre ropes, wind them around each other and join the ends into a ring.
Mix the molasses with the water, and spread the sesame on a wide plate.
Dip each ring in the molasses water and press it straight into the sesame. Do not wait: seeds will not stick to a surface that has dried.
Lay them on trays and prove them thirty minutes.
Bake at 220 °C for 18 to 20 minutes, to deep gold.

Why it works

The colour of a simit comes from the molasses, by two mechanisms at once. The first is caramelisation: the fructose and glucose in it brown on their own above 160 °C. The second is Maillard: the same sugars react with the amino acids at the surface of the dough. Plain dough cannot reach that colour, because the free sugar at its surface is eaten by the yeast before the oven ever gets there. The strength of the molasses water matters too — too dark a bath browns the surface early and the simit looks burnt before the middle is baked. The second technical point is the sesame: it will not stick to a dry surface, so nothing should come between the dip and the seeds. The third is the twist: winding two strands together increases the cross-section and gives the crisp-outside, soft-inside structure a single-strand ring does not.

The rough sum

1081 grams going in

3163 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

Vegan Vegetarian Lactose-free

Storage & shelf life

How long it keeps

The same day, uncovered: Until the evening
Freezer, wrapped singly: 2 months
Bagged at room temperature: One day: the crust goes soft
Fridge: Not advised

A simit is entirely an argument between crust and crumb, and a plastic bag settles it in an hour: the moisture inside moves into the crust and the crispness goes. Simit is wrapped in paper, not bagged. A day old, four minutes at 200 °C brings the crust back. A frozen one goes into the oven without thawing — water condensing on the surface as it thaws destroys the crust completely.

When to bin it Mould means it goes. Soft means the oven. But if the sesame smells bitter the seeds have turned, and then it goes too.

History

Where it comes from

The first Istanbul record of simit dates to 1525, and by then the city is known to have had more than seventy simit bakeries. Evliya Çelebi lists simit sellers as a guild of their own in the seventeenth century. The regional differences hold to this day: Ankara’s simit is smaller and drier, İzmir calls it *gevrek* and makes it thinner and crisper, Istanbul’s is thicker and softer. In Thessaloniki it is *koulouri* — the same bread under another name, spread across Greece.

The knack

Soak the sesame in water for five minutes and drain it first: wet seeds stick better and toast later in the oven.
If the colour stays pale, raise the molasses rather than the time: a long bake dries a simit out.
A loose twist opens in the oven: press the ends together and roll the join gently.

Dough and grain