Beyond börek, Turkish pastry encompasses gözleme (flatbread filled and cooked on a sac griddle), simit (sesame ring bread cooked in molasses water), açma (soft ring pastry), and katmer (Gaziantep's layered butter-clotted cream pastry). Each demonstrates a different aspect of Turkish dough technique — from the simplest hand-stretched flatbread to the technically demanding laminated doughs of the pastry tradition.
**Gözleme:** - Yufka or a similar thin dough stretched on a flat surface by hand (not with a rolling pin — stretched over the backs of the hands) until paper-thin - Filled with cheese and parsley, or spinach, or potato and cheese - Cooked on a large curved iron sac (griddle) at medium heat — the thin dough cooks through quickly without burning; the filling heats but doesn't cook further **Katmer (Gaziantep):** - The most technically demanding: yufka stretched extremely thin, spread with clotted cream (kaymak) and crushed pistachios, rolled and coiled, then flattened and griddled in clarified butter until golden - The layers of clotted cream separate during cooking, producing flaky pockets of pistachio-scented dairy **Simit:** - Ring-shaped dough dipped in diluted grape molasses (pekmez) then rolled in sesame seeds and baked — the grape molasses caramelises during baking, producing a deep mahogany colour and a distinctly sweet, complex crust - [VERIFY] Dagdeviren's specific simit molasses dipping technique
The Turkish Cookbook