Sfoof Buns

I looked these up, and Sfoof from the Lebanon, seems mostly to be cake made of semolina, but this recipe came from Jane Mason's The Book of Buns.  Flavours are similar.  What I like about this book, is that there are well demonstrated/photographed bun shaping techniques.  I had made some other buns using this technique of winding two pieces of dough then forming them into a round.

For Bun weekend, I was leafing through this book, and decided to try something very close to the original recipe.  For one I had bought a small pot of Mahlab when Vickie and I visited Borough Market.  I did not have any orange blossom water, so used a little of my Panettone essence.  And in my bid to reduce my animal fat consumption and less saturated fat, I used Pure Margarine instead of the butter.

The dough with the turmeric is a rich golden colour, and the seeds, spice and essences give this bun a gentle aroma and taste full of eastern promise.

all these need now is a little glaze and a scattering of chopped pistachio nuts.  Fifteen minutes later there is a home filled with wonderful baking smells and a couple of trays of buns.

I think next time I shall try soaking the nuts prior to chopping, or may cover the buns half way to try to lessen the scorching, specially when  warming them up for breakfast.