These lightly sweetened tahini buns are absolutely delicious. Perfec with a cup of tea or coffee, Beirut tahini swirls take just a few simple ingredients and turn them into a real treat.
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.
Notes
If you'd like, you can scale these rolls at half-size and make 12 smaller pastries.To store, keep at room temperature, wrapped, for 2 days. For longer storage, freeze in freezer bags and thaw at medium power in the microwave.These tahini swirls are good at room temperature, but they really shine when served slightly warm. Reheat in the microwave for a few seconds or wrapped in foil in a 350F oven for about 10 minutes.