Yeasted Buttered Breakfast

Açma

Name: Açma
Prep time: 140 min
Cook time: 22 min
Total time: 162 min
Yield: 10
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients: 250 ml Warm milk; 10 g Dried yeast; 30 g Sugar; 550 g Plain flour; 2 pcs Eggs (one yolk for the top); 60 ml Sunflower oil; 10 g Salt; 100 g Soft butter; 1 tsp Nigella seeds

Açma’s soft layers come from rolling each piece out with butter and coiling it. The dough proves twice at 24–27 °C.

Doughs and pastries · Turkish · Weekend batch · Freezes well · School lunchbox

162 minTime

364Kcal / serving

3639Total kcal

Preparation: 35 min
Cooking: 22 min
Resting: 105 min
Difficulty: Practised hand
Cost: Very cheap
Season: All year

Where this dish comes from

Açma is the soft sibling of simit: out of the same morning oven, but without sesame or molasses and rich with butter. The name comes from rolling the dough open, buttering it and coiling it back. That leaves thin layers of butter which separate in the oven, so açma pulls apart in strands. It is an enriched dough, so the yeast has a harder job: sugar and fat slow it, and the prove takes longer than bread.

Method

Before the heat goes on

Soften the butter to around 20 °C: spreadable, not melted.
Warm the milk to 35–40 °C.

You will need: A rolling pin · A tray and baking paper · A brush

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the milk; add the flour, one egg plus the white of the second, the oil and the salt and knead 10 minutes. Cover and prove at 24–27 °C for 60 minutes.

Look for A small piece stretched thin should let light through without tearing — the windowpane test.

Why Sugar at 6% and the fat make an enriched dough, and both slow the yeast. Ten minutes of kneading builds gluten strong enough to hold the layers.

If it went wrong

If the windowpane tears, knead three more minutes and test again. If it has not risen after 90 minutes, move the bowl into a switched-off oven with only the light on, which stays under 30 °C.

Starch still asleep The granules are just floating there doing nothing. No body arrives before 62 °C.

Salt · 0.99% Right in the window. Flavours sharpen, bitterness retreats, water is held.
Divide into 10. Roll each thin, spread with butter, roll it up, stretch the roll and join the ends into a ring or knot.

Look for Butter should not squeeze out of the ends; the roll should be snug but not strained.

Why The butter divides the dough into separate sheets. In the oven water between them turns to steam and pushes them apart.

Starch still asleep The granules are just floating there doing nothing. No body arrives before 62 °C.

Salt · 0.90% Right in the window. Flavours sharpen, bitterness retreats, water is held.
Set on the tray, prove a second time for 45 minutes, brush with yolk, scatter nigella and bake at 180 °C for 20 to 22 minutes.

Look for A glossy amber top with the layers just parting at the sides.

Why Sugar on the surface caramelises and speeds browning; at 200 °C açma darkens before the middle is done. At 180 °C the two keep pace.

Starch still asleep The granules are just floating there doing nothing. No body arrives before 62 °C.

Salt · 0.90% Right in the window. Flavours sharpen, bitterness retreats, water is held.

Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back

The egg is setting Proteins unfold and link up, binding everything together. This is where creaminess comes from. no way back

Maillard is running Amino acids have met reducing sugars. The crust, the roasted flavour and that smell all come from here. no way back

Too much starch. It will set into a rubbery gel once cool — add more liquid.

What the model could follow

This recipe was run through the engine step by step — what goes in when, and at what temperature and for how long. The reactions above come from that run.

peak 180 °C · 161 minutes · engine 1.0.0 · confidence low

Servings

10

Ingredients

250 ml Warm milk
10 g Dried yeast
30 g Sugar
550 g Plain flour
2 pcs Eggs (one yolk for the top)
60 ml Sunflower oil
10 g Salt
100 g Soft butter
1 tsp Nigella seeds

What did you think

Who is eating

Everyone A baby under one Pregnant A child An athlete Someone living with diabetes

The 1 rules we hold for this group did not fire for this dish. That does not mean the dish is suitable for them; it means those particular rules did not apply.

Not about the dish — about the person

Salt in a day

5 g

Ages 2 to 15 Context established

No separate figure is given for a child: the adult value is adjusted downward by the child’s energy requirement. So for a small child the limit is well below 5 g and moves with age — printing one number would invent a precision the source does not offer. Under one year, and 6-24 months, fall outside this recommendation altogether; added salt is not on the table at that age in any case.

World Health Organization, Salt reduction

Free sugars

10%

Strong recommendation — adults and children Context established

The same share for adults and for children. Ten per cent of a 2000-calorie day is roughly 50 g of sugar, and a single can of a fizzy drink is more than half of it. The risk of weight gain, obesity and tooth decay rises above this line.

World Health Organization, Information note about intake of sugars recommended in the WHO guideline for adults and children, 2015

5%

Conditional recommendation Context established

This one carries a different strength, and the difference is written down on purpose: 10% is a strong recommendation, 5% is conditional. That is WHO’s own distinction, and putting the two in one sentence would say the evidence behind them is equally strong.

World Health Organization, Information note about intake of sugars recommended in the WHO guideline for adults and children, 2015

Protein in a day

0.83–1.31 g/kg

Infants, children and adolescents Context established

Per kilogram the need is higher in a child than an adult, because growth wants protein too. There is no single number: it runs between 0.83 and 1.31 g by age. Which age takes which figure is not written here, because writing it without reading the table would be inventing it.

European Food Safety Authority, Dietary Reference Values for protein, 2012

The infant feeding calendar

5 years

Shapes that are a choking risk Context established

Whole nuts are not given below five years old — the reason is choking, not allergy. The same logic covers anything round and firm: quarter a grape lengthways, cut sausage along its length rather than across. The nut itself is not the problem; ground or as a butter it is fine from around six months. What changes is the shape, not the ingredient.

NHS, Foods to avoid giving babies and young children

What is done, and what is not: The salt and sugar thresholds are quoted in WHO's own words; not even WHO gives a gram figure specific to a child, only that the adult value is adjusted down by energy requirement. The approach to portions, fussy eating and texture is on the page; this child's growth curve, and any allergy they have, cannot be.

This choice is not stored anywhere.

Diets

Gluten-free Not suitable Flour
Vegan Not suitable Milk, Egg, Butter
Vegetarian Suitable as it is
Lactose-free Suitable with a substitution Milk Instead: Milk → Oat milk
Diabetes-friendly It depends Free sugar. What it does to blood glucose depends on the portion and on what is eaten with it.

This verdict comes from the recipe\u2019s own ingredient list. The label on a packaged ingredient is always the last word.

What a swap costs

Milk → Oat milk No reaction in this recipe is lost. -3 kcal · -0.1 g fat · -0.6 g protein

Computed weight for weight. A ratio per pair would be better, and there is no sourced table of them, so the assumption is stated rather than hidden.

Calculated nutrition

363.9 kcal
8 g Protein
46.5 g Carbohydrate
16 g Fat
1.7 g Fibre

Per serving, computed from raw weights as bought. Cooking drives water off and sometimes adds fat, and neither is accounted for.

Vitamins and minerals · per serving

Vitamins

Vitamin A 96.2 µg · 12%
Vitamin D 0.23 µg · 5%
Vitamin E 2.6 mg · 22%
Vitamin K 1.3 µg · 2%
Vitamin C <0.01 mg · 0%
B1 (thiamin) 0.10 mg · 9%
B2 (riboflavin) 0.13 mg · 9%
B3 (niacin) 0.85 mg · 5%
B5 (pantothenic acid) 0.55 mg · 9%
Vitamin B6 0.06 mg · 4%
Folate 28.4 µg · 14%
Vitamin B12 0.22 µg · 9%

Minerals

Potassium 115 mg · 6%
Calcium 45.8 mg · 6%
Phosphorus 107 mg · 15%
Magnesium 16.5 mg · 4%
Iron 0.87 mg · 6%
Zinc 0.72 mg · 7%
Copper 0.10 mg · 10%
Manganese 0.38 mg · 19% ~
Selenium 22.9 µg · 42%
Sodium 415 mg · 17%

% of daily need for:

Percentages are shares of the reference values printed on food labels (Turkish Food Codex labelling regulation, Annex 13 (identical to EU Regulation 1169/2011, Annex XIII)), not a personal requirement. For sodium the reference is a ceiling. Computed from raw ingredients; cooking lowers some vitamins. "~": not measured in some of the ingredients.

Not counted: Nigella seeds.

USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy · ANSES Ciqual 2025 · CoFID 2021 · Swiss FCDB 7.1

composition figures unsourced · held in the system

Nutri-Score

D Per 100 g of the raw mixture, computed with the published Nutri-Score algorithm (2023 update). Confidence: low.

Nutri-Score compares a food with others of its kind; it is not a health claim or personal dietary advice on its own. Cooking drives off water, so the cooked dish may score differently.

How it was calculated

Category: general food · Negative points 14 − positive points 0 = 14

Energy 1365.1 kJ → 4
Saturated fat 5.84 g → 5
Sugars 4.03 g → 1
Salt 0.934 g → 4
Protein 7.12 g → 2 (not counted)
Fibre 1.41 g → 0
Fruit, vegetables, legumes %0 → 0

Salt = sodium × 2.5. Only ingredients plainly in the fruit-vegetable-legume group are counted towards that share; doubtful ones are left out, which can only make the letter worse. Values from USDA FoodData Central and Ciqual; 81% of the weight is a close rather than exact match.

After the heat goes off

Serving

Warm, with tea and cheese — as it comes out of the morning oven.

Keeping · 2 days

In a closed bag at room temperature, two days.

Cooling and reheating

Five minutes at 150 °C.

Freezes

Baked açma freezes for two months; eight minutes at 160 °C from frozen.

What is left

Stale açma makes a buttery bread pudding.

For a child

Suits children as a finger food from 12 months; it contains sugar and salt, so for babies it should not stand in for everyday bread (NHS).

Where to go from here

The oven The method this recipe rests on
Milk What it does in heat, water and acid
Egg What it does in heat, water and acid
Butter What it does in heat, water and acid
Poğaça with cheese Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Sesame simit at home Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Pişi Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Weekend batch Other recipes that answer the same need
Freezes well Other recipes that answer the same need
School lunchbox Other recipes that answer the same need

Taste profile

What it tastes like

The axes that define this recipe: sweet 29.

Sweet 29
Salty 7
Sour 2
Bitter 13
Umami 29
Heat 1
Richness 34
Aroma 42

This profile is computed rather than measured: the role-weighted average of its ingredients’ taste vectors, shifted by what the cooking does. The thin line is the database average on that axis.

Computed similarity