Baku-style Kyata

BAKU-STYLE KYATA
Kyata is a cross-national, sweet Middle Eastern pastry. Each nation has its own recipe and name for this simple-but-tasty pastry, but the basic idea each of recipe is the same: flour, butter, and sugar.
Even different regions of Azerbaijan prepare Kyata differently. There is Nakhichevani-style Kyata, Karabakh-style Kyata, Baku-style Kyata, and more.

Ingredients for the dough:
3 cups flour
8 oz (227 g) or 2 sticks unsalted cold butter
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg (egg white for the dough, egg yolk for coating)
1 packet vanilla sugar (1 tablespoon)
1 pinch of salt

Ingredients for the filling:
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup flour
4 oz (113 g) or 1 stick unsalted cold butter
1 packet vanilla sugar (1 tablespoon)

Preparation:
Preparing the dough.
Sift the flour onto a large chopping board. Using a cheese grater, grate the butter into the flour, and lightly mix them together.
In a bowl, mix the sour cream with the baking soda and the salt.

In the middle of the flour-butter mixture, add the sour cream mixture, vanilla sugar, and the egg white.

Chop all the ingredients together with a chopping knife, bring them into the center of the board and continue chopping and mixing them together until you get smooth dough.

Do not over-knead the dough! You should be able to see little bits of butter in it. These small chunks of butter are what will make the Kyata crispy and flaky.
Divide the dough into two evenly-sized pieces. Shape each piece of the dough into a ball and dust it with flour.

Wrap each ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Preparing the filling.
Grate the cold butter using a cheese grater and lightly mix it with the sugar, flour, and vanilla sugar.

Preparing the kyata.
Remove one ball of dough from the refrigerator.
Dust your working surface with flour to keep the dough from sticking and roll out the dough with a large heavy rolling pin to a thickness of 3-5 mm. When the dough rolled out, the butter flattened into flakes.
Spread half of the filling evenly over the dough and slowly start rolling the dough into a tight roulade.

Gently press down the top of the roulade with your hands to flatten it out a little bit.
Coat the roulade with a mixture of the egg yolk, ½ teaspoon of olive oil, and ½ teaspoon of saffron infusion and cut it with a crinkle cutter (or shaped knife) diagonally into 5 cm-wide pieces.

Arrange the slices on a baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (180°C) for 20 minutes until golden brown.
Repeat the procedure with the second half of the dough and the remaining filling.

Bon Appétit! Enjoy!

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