Maraş Çöreği

Appearance & taste

Maraş Çöreği are round, cream-coloured to creamy golden biscuits 10 to 15 cm in diameter with a ridged surface. After baking they are on average 8 mm thick. They smell of black cumin and salt, taste slightly salty and have a dense, grainy consistency.

They are sold by weight or by the piece in trays or packaged. Cartons must be lined with aluminium foil or a similarly waterproof material.

Production

For 10 kg of standard wheat flour there are 4 kg of vegetable margarine, 120 to 130 g of fine salt, 20 to 30 g of fresh black cumin seeds (Nigella sativa) without husk residues, 250 g of fresh yeast and 4 l of drinking water.

Making the dough, shaping, baking and cooling take place in the area. The rolling pin must be made of hornbeam wood; it is 8 cm wide and 33 cm long, and its grooves are 0.5 mm deep and wide. A special rolling technique produces the typical ridges. The biscuits are baked in a stone oven fired with oak wood – according to the specification, oaks, such as kermes and Aleppo oaks, are considered the historically predominant trees in the forests around Kahramanmaraş. According to the specification, making the dough, rolling, shaping and baking require great skill, which is learned early in the area.

Origin & history

The area is the province of Kahramanmaraş in Turkey. According to the specification, the biscuits have been part of the city’s cuisine for centuries; historical records go back to Ottoman times. They are baked and eaten in large quantities above all during the fasting month of Ramadan and for the feast of breaking the fast, play a part in religious and social gatherings and are traditionally also offered to mourners after a funeral.

In the past, housewives made the dough for the family or for sale; often someone from the family took the shaped biscuits to the neighbourhood bakery to be baked, and they were frequently sold to bakeries and patisseries to supplement the household budget. For 30 years they have also been made in businesses in Kahramanmaraş. According to the specification, a catalogue of local products published in 2018 and several newspaper reports attest to their reputation.