Sheermal Bread Recipe

I have made these sheermal bread long time back. I almost forgot that I also had taken pictures for blogging as well, until I started clearing my laptop clutter and discarding some old pictures, specifically food related pictures. These popped up in my gallery like hidden gems. I tried to recall when did I make them, but couldn’t recall much except it was on a cold afternoon day. I happened to check the dates and it was almost 2-3 years ago, when we were still in UK. That old, Duh!! I know.

I didn’t post the recipe at that time either. I had roughly written recipe notes somewhere in my word doc as well. Now after all these time, finally sheermal recipe is now being talked about here. I always liked the sweet version of naan more, I mean sheermal more, as being a Bengali, we like everything which is sweet.

This recipe is apt balanced, not way too much sweet and not bland as well for us. This satisfied our cravings for sheermal bread at that time. Although I made it for lunch, actually now I recall it was late breakfast for us, more of a brunch time when we had devoured these beauties. We had it with chicken keema. That was a really very satisfying meal on a cold afternoon day. When eating sheermal, please don’t count your calories, just enjoy the flavours.

Now to the recipe

Sheermal Bread Recipe

 For the Bread

• 3 heaped cups of flour/maida
• 2 tsp of active dry yeast
•  2-3 tbs of oil/desi ghee
• 3 tbs of caster sugar
• 1 egg
•  ½ cup of Milk to knead the dough

Saffron infused sugar syrup

•  2-3 generous pinch of Saffron strands
• 2-3 tbs of sugar
• ¼ cup of milk
•  3-4 tbs of desi ghee/butter for garnishing the bread

Method

• Heat up ½ cup of milk for kneading purpose into a lukewarm strength.
• Dissolve saffron in ¼ cup of lukewarm milk and add in caster sugar to the saffron milk. Let it dissolve properly.
• In a big mixing bowl, add in flour, active dry yeast, oil, caster sugar, egg and lukewarm milk. Knead well all till they start to collect well. The dough should be soft and can collect well.
• Leave it to rest for 3-4 hrs or the flour has risen well.
• Knead the dough again for about 5-8 mints and divide the dough into 8-10 small balls.
• Cover the divided dough and let it sit for about half an hour.
• Roll each small balls into rounds with a roller but with gentle hands. The edges ideally should be little thick.
• Brush some melted butter over it and make marks with a fork.
• Set the oven at 175 deg C.
• Line a baking tray with foil. Place 2-3 rounds neatly and bake it for about 8-10 mints each side or they turn out nice fluffy and brown. Half way through take out baking tray, flip the sides of the sheermal bread and again brush with melted butter and put it back into the oven.
• Take out after 8-10 mints and sprinkle saffron infused sugar syrup generously and serve with butter on top.
• You may add toasted sesame seeds and chopped pistachios and almonds as well. I have used some orange colour with saffron syrup to make it look more dramatic, but it’s not that much required, you can skip it altogether.

Delicious sheermal is ready.Happy Cooking Friends.