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Cereals and bread from Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey

Sourdough flatbreads of the Middle East and Caucasus (family)سنگک

Wheat flour, water and salt are mixed with leaven kept from earlier dough, left to rise for a short time and flattened. The thin sheets are baked fast at very high heat; lavash on the hot wall of a clay tandoor (tonir), sangak on a bed of small river stones in an oven, bazlama on a hot sheet.

Fully documentedCereals and bread5.1 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedEach bakery and household keeps its own leaven and proportions; no tested recipe for sangak or lavash was found.
Wheat flour, whole or white[pontonio2015][ozdemir2024]
Water[ozdemir2024]
SaltA survey of bakeries near Isfahan, covering breads of all kinds, took under 2 g per 100 g of bread as its reference level; 64.5% of samples were above it[rezaiimofrad2013]
Leaven (old dough or sourdough)Wikipedia says Armenian lavash may be leavened with yeast or with ttkhmor, a starter of dough from the previous batch[wp-lavash]
Starterbackslop (old dough / sourdough); baker's yeast, and baking soda in some Iranian bakeries, in modern practice

Total time across the recorded steps: 5.1 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactic acid bacteriaYeastspH 3.9SugarAlcoholCO₂

What changes: Flour and water refreshed day after day sour into a leaven

Step 1 of 5
Build or refresh the leaven
Time
5 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
pH 3.9
Measured
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Yeasts

Output: active leaven.

Flavour
sour
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

lactic bacteria and yeasts multiply with each refreshment

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, water and salt are mixed with leaven kept from earlier dough, left to rise for a short time and flattened. The thin sheets are baked fast at very high heat; lavash on the hot wall of a clay tandoor (tonir), sangak on a bed of small river stones in an oven, bazlama on a hot sheet. Made in 5 steps over 5.1 days. The longest step, build or refresh the leaven, takes 5 days (Özdemir N 2024). Pediococcus pentosaceus, Weissella cibaria, Weissella confusa and Leuconostoc citreum and Yeasts including Kluyveromyces marxianus and Kluyveromyces aestuarii do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step5 daysReported[ozdemir2024]Build or refresh the leaven
Temperature20–30 °CReported[ozdemir2024]Shape and let it rise briefly
AciditypH 3.9Measured[ozdemir2024]Build or refresh the leaven

What makes this one different

These breads are leavened with old dough or sourdough like European sourdough loaves, but the dough is flattened thin and baked in minutes at very high heat in clay ovens or on hot stones and sheets.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Sangak (Iran)Baked on a bed of small river stones in an oven; studied at 280–340 °C for 4–8 min.
  • Lavash (Armenia)Inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2014 as an expression of culture in Armenia; baked on the hot wall of a tandoor (tonir), then often dried, when it lasts months.
  • Bazlama (Turkey)In a 2024 study the dough was shaped into rounds 140 mm across and 7 mm thick, made with sourdough and baked on a hot sheet.
  • Azerbaijani whole-wheat sourdough flatbreadsListed as sourdough breads in Wikipedia.

Safety

In a 2024 lab study of sourdough bazlama, a Turkish flatbread, the researchers added ochratoxin A to clean flour at 5 and 10 µg/kg. Making the bread cut it by 45–55 %, and the authors caution that some of the drop may be breakdown products their test could not detect. Baking at about 300 °C for 10 minutes did not lower it significantly. Three of the four batches still held more than the 3 µg/kg limit set by Turkey and the EU, so the flour itself must be clean.

Hazards the sources name: Ochratoxin A added to flour at 5 and 10 µg/kg in a lab study of sourdough bazlama; bread-making cut it 45–55 %, but three of four batches stayed above the 3 µg/kg limit.

History and sources

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

Wikipedia says the Persian army's bread sangak is first mentioned in the 11th century, and that the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List inscribed lavash as an expression of culture in Armenia in 2014. A separate 2016 listing covers lavash, katyrma, jupka and yufka flatbread culture in Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey.

  1. [pontonio2015] Pontonio E. et al. 2015, Iranian wheat flours from rural and industrial mills, exploitation of the chemical and technology features, and selection of autochthonous sourdough starters for making breads, Food Microbiol 47:99–110, doi:10.1016/j.fm.2014.10.011paper
  2. [fekri2020] Fekri A. et al. 2020, Functional effects of phytate-degrading, probiotic lactic acid bacteria and yeast strains isolated from Iranian traditional sourdough on whole wheat bread, Food Chem 306:125620, doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2019.125620paper
  3. [ozdemir2024] Özdemir N., Gül H. 2024, Effects of fermentation time, baking, and storage on ochratoxin A levels in sourdough flat bread, Food Sci Nutr 12:7370–7378, doi:10.1002/fsn3.4357paper
  4. [izadinajafabadi2014] Izadi Najafabadi L., Le-Bail A., Hamdami N., Monteau J.Y., Keramat J. 2014, Impact of baking conditions and storage temperature on staling of fully and part-baked Sangak bread, J Cereal Sci 60:151–156, doi:10.1016/j.jcs.2014.02.004paper
  5. [rezaiimofrad2013] Rezaiimofrad M., Rangraz Jeddi F., Azarbad Z. 2013, Baking soda and salt in bakeries of Mehrdasht (Najafabad), Isfahan, Iran, J Prev Med Hyg 54:53–56paper
  6. [s1] Wikipedia, Sourdough (Azerbaijan), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdoughwiki
  7. [wp-lavash] Wikipedia, Lavash (outline only; tandoor, starter, drying, UNESCO listings)wiki
  8. [wp-sangak] Wikipedia, Sangak (outline only; baking on river stones, early mention)wiki