Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cereals and bread from Egypt

Eish shamsi (Upper Egyptian sun-risen bread)عيش شمسي

Wheat flour is mixed with a leaven of yeasty dough, water and salt, and the dough is cut into rounds that rise in the sun on bran-dusted boards. The risen rounds are marked with a wooden splint and baked briefly in a hot oven into thick, round loaves.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Eish shamsi itself.

DocumentedCereals and bread25 min

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceOne household recipe printed in a 2009 Egypt Independent feature. Homes bake every two or three days.
Wheat flour3.125 kg[mahdawi2009]
Yeasty dough (leaven)1/2 cup[mahdawi2009]
Lukewarm water2 cupsAdded as needed while mixing[mahdawi2009]
SaltA pinch[mahdawi2009][elbehary2015]
Ground branDusted on the board that the rounds rise on[mahdawi2009]
Starteryeasty dough (leaven)

Total time across the recorded steps: 25 min

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Old dough, flour, warm water and salt are kneaded into a soft dough

Step 1 of 4
Prepare the leaven and dough
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

One account starts the leaven on day one, kneads it with flour, warm water and salt and leaves it covered until the next day. A 2009 recipe divides the dough at once, without a first fermentation. Output: dough, kneaded and covered.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Wheat flour is mixed with a leaven of yeasty dough, water and salt, and the dough is cut into rounds that rise in the sun on bran-dusted boards. The risen rounds are marked with a wooden splint and baked briefly in a hot oven into thick, round loaves. Made in 4 steps over 25 min. The longest step, portion and rise in the sun, takes at least 15 min (El Mahdawi M. 2009).

Key numbers
Main stepat least 15 minReported[mahdawi2009]Portion and rise in the sun

What makes this one different

Eish shamsi ("sun bread") is thought to be named for letting the dough rise in the sun, and it is a thick loaf that replaces eish baladi as the local staple in Upper Egypt.

Related ferments

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The name comes from the Arabic word for sun. El-Behary 2015 calls it an inheritance from pharaonic times. El-Behary 2015 reports, citing the Supply Ministry, that at least 50 percent of people in Aswan city rely on it as their staple, and some Cairo bakeries also make it.

  1. [mahdawi2009] El Mahdawi M. 2009, Egyptian cuisine through the ages, Egypt Independent, 10 June 2009 (news feature with recipes)web
  2. [elbehary2015] El-Behary H. 2015, Al-Shamsi "an ancient" bread still baked in upper Egypt, Egypt Independent, 31 March 2015 (news feature)web
  3. [wp] Wikipedia, Eish shamsi (outline only)wiki