Jahnun (Yemenite Layered Pastry)
Serves 10 Time 6–10 hours Difficulty 4/5 Ingredients 8 Steps 14
Jachnun is a Yemenite pastry made of worked dough (made without the use of yeast) and traditionally eaten hot during the Sabbath morning meal, after being left to bake all throughout the night within a sealed pot in an oven.
Ingredients
- 1 kg white wheat flour
- 10 g baking powder (optional)
- 2–3 tbsp white granulated sugar (or to taste)
- 1 leveled tbsp salt
- 2¼ cups of water
- Canola oil
- 200 g butter, soft margarine, or shortening
- 10 hard-boiled eggs
Steps
- Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Make well in center.
- Add some of the water to well. Mix by hand. Gradually knead in rest of water.
- Knead 15 min. Dough should not be too soft or sticky.
- Tear off fist-sized piece of dough. Flatten, roll out, and reshape into ball. Repeat with remaining dough.
- Brush all balls with thin coating of oil.
- Rest 1–2 hours until slightly sunken.
- Roll and stretch each ball on greased surface until very thin, without tearing.
- Spread soft butter over whole surface of flattened dough.
- Fold lengthwise: one-third toward middle, then other side. Fold small, up and down.
- Roll with greased hands from bottom to top into elongated, slightly fat roll. Repeat for all dough balls.
- Preheat oven to 212 F. Line pot with slices of bread or pita.
- Place each unbaked jachnun in cookie bag, single layer per bag. Stack in pot, 2–3 rows, criss-crossed.
- Cover pot with lid. Bake in preheated oven 6–10 hours.
- Serve with hard-boiled eggs and tomato salsa, with a little zhug over the paste.
Notes from the original
- The dough cooks best when left to refrigerate for one day prior to baking.
- Since hard-boiled eggs are served with the jachnun, they can be simultaneously cooked in a separate pot of water within the same heated oven.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Jahnun (Yemenite Layered Pastry)” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2026-04-12, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo. Jachnun.jpg by Joshua Herzig-Marx, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.