Sukkar Bi Tahin or Beirut tahini swirls are addictive lean pastries with a just-sweet-enough tahini filling. You will love them with a cup of tea or coffee.
This recipe comes from the magnificent cookbook Home Baking, by Jeffrey Alford and Naoimi Duguid.
If you are a fan of yeasted breads to enjoy for morning or afternoon tea, you may also like my sweet tahini challah, chocolate babka, and pumpkin pecan babka recipes.
Why You Need to Make These
When you think about tahini, you may not think “sweet desserts,” but considering that tahini is pretty similar in flavor to peanut butter, maybe it will make more sense.
Peanut butter is equally at home in savory preparations like soups and satay–or as a savory foil to sweet jelly in a sandwich–as it is in peanut butter cookies and peanut butter fudge.
Here’s why you need these tahini swirls in your life.
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- Easy to make. They have a pretty minimal ingredient list, and the payoff is bite after bite of warm, gooey, just-sweet-enough goodness.
- Not too sweet. I have to say that, while I am a fan of a gooey cinnamon roll, it’s nice to have a pastry that’s not quite so sweet. That you can enjoy with coffee without your teeth aching. These guys totally fit the bill.
- Small-ish batch recipe. If you make these full-sized, you end up with six buns. And of course you can split them. Or you can make them half-size and end up with twelve. Either way, you won’t be swimming in pastries.
- They freeze well. Like most yeast breads, these buns will freeze just fine for about three months. So if even six is too many, know they’ll be waiting for you in the freezer!
How to Make These Guys
Ingredients
All you need is a total of seven ingredients. Nice!
For the Dough:
- yeast: for rise. You can use either active dry yeast or instant yeast. If you are not sure if your active dry yeast is still alive and kicking, stir it together with the warm water and first amount of sugar and let it proof. Then add it to the rest of the ingredients in the mixer.
- water: warm water. Not too hot and not too cold. If it feels cozy to you, it’ll be cozy for the yeast. Aim for around 110F or so
- sugar: gives the yeast a headstart by giving them ready food to nibble on. You can also use honey, maple syrup, or even brown sugar
- flour: all-purpose is fine here. You can substitute bread flour for a bit more chewy buns, but you may need to add a little bit extra water
- salt: controls the yeast growth and brings out flavor
- olive oil: adds just a little fat to tenderize the gluten
For the Filling:
- tahini: unsweetened sesame paste. You can substitute natural peanut butter, sun butter, almond butter or any other natural nut butter to change up the flavor or if you have a sesame allergy
- sugar: lightly sweetens the sesame paste. Add a little less or a little more depending on how sweet you want your filling to be. I think the 1:1 ratio is just perfect though
Procedure
Tahini swirls are easy to make and fun to shape.
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To make the dough, put all the ingredients in the mixer at one time and knead until the dough is smooth and mostly clears the sides of the bowl.
To shape the dough, think of it as making cinnamon rolls with just a couple of slight modifications.
- Divide dough into 6 pieces.
- Press each piece out into a rectangle.
- Spread filling on each piece.
- Roll up like a cigar.
- Roll each cigar out until it’s about 20″ long.
- Coil up the filled rope of dough, tucking the end under so it doesn’t unroll.
- Use your rolling pin to roll and flatten so the coils stick together.
This is pretty much the same technique you’d use to make scallion pancakes.
Tips for Success
Don’t rush the kneading process. You want the dough to be smooth, shiny, and stretchy. This can take about ten minutes of kneading on medium to medium-low speed.
Proof your yeast if you’re not sure if it’s still active. Instant yeast should be fine, honestly, but sometimes active dry yeast can be tempermental. To be sure your yeast is active, mix it together with the warm water and 2 teaspoons of sugar and let it sit until foamy. Then proceed with the recipe.
Scale them out accurately. Buns of the same size will bake at the same rate, so for accuracy’s sake, use a kitchen scale to weigh out your dough rather than just eyeballing it.
More Middle Eastern Recipes
If lightly sweet is your thing, you’ll really enjoy these lovely Persian Saffron Raisin Cookies from my friend Laura and Family Spice.
And don’t forget hummus, because it’s delicious. Beth’s Preserved Lemon Hummus over at OMGYummy! is not to be missed.
More Middle Eastern delights include Date Walnut thumbprint cookies and Tahdig, the magical Persian rice dish.
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Beirut Tahini Swirls (Sukkar bi Tahin)
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Equipment
Ingredients
For the Dough
- ½ teaspoon active dry yeast
- 1 cup lukewarm water
- about 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
For the Filling
- ¾ cup tahini
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
Instructions
For the Dough
- Place all the ingredients (start with 2 cups of flour) in the bowl of your stand mixer. Attach the dough hook and mix on low until a shaggy dough forms. Increase the speed and knead for several minutes.
- The dough will most likely be pretty soft at this point and sticking in the bottom of the bowl in a large circle. Add flour, a bit at a time, until the dough is only sticking in about a 1″ circle. The dough will still be somewhat sticky, and that’s okay. Knead for about ten minutes.
- Test the dough by lightly oiling your hands and then pulling on a piece of the dough. It should stretch out quite a bit before it tears. You can also try the windowpane test, but with all purpose flour, it doesn’t always work so well. You should be able to stretch it fairly thin before it tears.
- Again with lightly oiled hands, form the dough into a ball, lightly oil it and let rise in a warm place, covered, for 2-3 hours, or until doubled in size.
- Preheat the oven to 375F about an hour before you’ll be baking. Put a rack in the center of the oven and put your baking stone on it to let it get good and hot.
For the Filling
- Stir the tahini and sugar together until smooth. Keep at room temperature.
- Press out the gases from the dough and divide into 6 pieces. My dough weighed 596 grams when finished, so I scaled my dough at about 99grams per portion.
- Cover the dough balls with plastic wrap.
- Roll the first ball into a rectangle (it will be a fairly rough shape, so don’t be sad) about 5″x10″. Spread the tahini filling all over the rectangle, coming pretty close to the edges.
- Roll each rectangle up into a cigar, starting with a long side. Pinch the seam to seal.
- Set that cigar aside and do the same with two more balls of dough. You’ll work with the other three later.
- Gently stretch and roll each cigar of filled dough into a rope about 20″ long. Coil each rope into a snail, tucking the end under and pressing down gently. Cover and let sit for about 5 minutes.
- Alternating among the three snails, lightly roll each snail out into a 6″-7″ circle. It might take a little finessing, so just go with it. Be gentle and take your time.
- Bake the three rolls on the preheated baking stone for 15-20 minutes. 18 minutes was perfect in my oven. The rolls should be lightly golden brown.
- Roll, fill and shape the remaining three balls of dough and bake them once the first three are done. Cool on wire racks.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
- These guys are perfect with a cup of tea or coffee.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Notes
Nutrition
Hi, y’all! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and hopefully also learned a thing or two.
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And there you have it, friends! Enjoy these wonderful Lebanese treats.
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I am also a big fan of Pam Anderson’s books.
Her stuff is so relatable. This one is the only one I have though. I should get more since I like her style so much!
Ooooh. Of course I like any yeasty recipe. I have to say that I’ve never thought about using tahini as a filling, which is weird because I love sesame seeds. I need to try this.
I think you will love it, Donna–easy to make and completely delicious!
My Mom never cooked from cookbooks, but then she only cooked traditional meals which were out of this world good. As a culture it was unusual for anyone to cook anything but the traditional cuisine. So I really went nuts buying cookbooks when I started on my own.
Baking is what takes more of my dough 😉 these days.. can’t have enough of technique books!
LOL Ansh–I see what you did there! I envy you your rich cultural tradition of food though. How wonderful to be able to recreate your childhood favorites from memory. Indian cuisine–what I have had of it, anyway–is hands down my favorite food on the planet!
recipe looks great!
Man, is it ever, Jenny! Seriously perfect with a strong cup of coffee!
I have in my kitchen right now everything I need to make this! I think I will whip up a batch tonight or early tomorrow. I have a mom coming over for a play date tomorrow morning. These will be lovely to have.
When I first got married at 19 I received, among other things, two cookbooks as wedding presents. One was the good old Betty Crocker one, the other was a “cooking with convenience foods” type of cookbook (the idea of which already grossed me out). But neither of those ignited a passion in me.
What did? Laurel’s Kitchen. I bought a used copy from somewhere… We weren’t vegetarians but we were poor and it was my intention to make meat more of a side dish in order to be more frugal. That book is as much philosophy as cookbook and I could not live up to anything in there, so my cooking/being good enough guilt started early. But I strived. Oh I strived. I remember kneading bread until I thought my arms would fall off. I cooked pounds of beans. I tried to be mindful with every chop of a carrot. It was exhausting! LOL
Still, the basics I learned there have always stuck in my mind, especially the idea that preparing food with love and care is a special way of making a connection with and truly giving something of ourselves to our loved ones.
I think that’s the lesson food has to teach us and the most important/special reason why we cook for others. We aren’t vegetarians either, but I’m much more likely to use meat as a “flavoring” as opposed to the main event.
You are so good to your family. I hope they appreciate you! <3
Jenni, our childhood food experiences sound so similar! My mother did a ton of Italian-American classics, and my father’s mother – who also came to live with us for a time – was British, so we would have tea with milk and sugar together in the afternoons. I loved reading about your evolution of cookbook collecting. It is all about technique! These buns sound amazing – I can’t wait to try them!
Thanks so much, Amy! I have been enjoying everyone’s stories so much! Cheers to technique! (I’m toasting you with a mug of tea with milk and sugar.) =)
What a wonderful story, and what an amazing collection of books! I also own The Cake Bible and credit it for teaching me technique. That is what appeals to me about baking,the precise technique. Your tahini swirls are perfection.
I am so glad I met you through this promotion, Angela! Yay! Glad you like the swirls–they are pretty delicious! The Cake Bible is my primary cooking bible these days–so much great info and technique. I tend to turn to my books more as references these days than for recipes, so bibles are awesome to have around!
Wow I never knew this about you, all those ginormous cookbooks! Wow! No wonder you have so much baking knowledge! Very cool…. as are these amazing buns and I’m making them! I do have a huge jar of tahini in my fridge with nothing else to do! And wowee those cookbooks!
Oh, yay! You will love these guys, Jamie–not too sweet and perfect with a cup of coffee. Plus, the recipe only makes 6 so it’s not a huge commitment! =)
I collect cookbooks, but I’m really selective about it so I don’t end up with piles of them everywhere. And I actually use the books that I have. I’m waiting for a truly special occasion to whip something up from my Salvador Dali cookbook though. Interesting recipes in there. 😉
Whoa, I bet there are some *really* interesting things in that cookbook, Pamela! I haven’t bought a cookbook in a really long time, but I did finally break down and order The Flavor Bible. Looking forward to reading it. 🙂
Thanks for making something vegan just for me 😉
I can’t wait to try these – I’ve never had tahini in bread before. I love it in hummus but hate it in sweet baked goods.
I hope you like it–I think they’re pretty delicious! And of *course* I made them vegan just for you! =)
These are lovely!
Thanks very much, Marie. 🙂
I have never either had these or heard of these, but they sure sound wonderful! I love that you have one of Pam Anderson;s cookbooks on your list!! Here “Perfect Recipes For having People Over” is in my top 5 favorite cookbooks of all time (I also thing her dedication, talent and passion is what made Cook’s Illustrated so darn good)! Thanks for joining in!
I was thrilled to participate, Colleen! Thanks for having me. And if you like to bake and are a fan of tahini, these little guys are worth making! And since the recipe makes only six, it’s not a huge commitment! lol Yes, Pam Anderson is wonderful. that How to Cook without a Book was a revelation for me. I’ll have to look up Perfect Recipes for Having People Over, too!
I have so many cookbooks and even more recipes printed out or pinned. I have always loved food. I learned watching my mom; I learned by experimenting and in the beginning I was inspired and used the old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It really helped me learn the basics!
It’s so important to understand the basics. How we get there is part of the messy fun of it all! =)
I too collect cookbooks Jenni – although we only had one or two in my house growing up; in fact, I now have the red Betty Crocker cookbook on my shelf – the red spine has fallen off and it’s tattered and worn, but it’s the book I began cooking from when I was 12 or 13.
Love the look of these Tahini Swirls!
I never owned cookbooks as a kid, so it’s very special that you still have one from your childhood, Debra. <3 And the tahini swirls are So Delicious!
I love the evolution of your cookbook collecting, Jenni. I tend to find a new chef or writer that I love and buy All The Books. Which is okay when you come upon that person early in his or her career. It gets expensive when you want them all now – and they have 12 on the market.
I am a huge fan of sesame so I am pretty sure I’d love these rolls. They sure are pretty!
Thanks, Stacy! I haven’t bought a cookbook in a really long time. Sad, right? But I did spring for The Flavor Bible and can’t wait to inhale it!
I honestly don’t know why these particular rolls captured me all those years ago, but they really are delicious. I’m going to warm one up and have it with my coffee in just a bit. So glad we were in this group together. =)