Kubaneh (Yemenite Pull-Apart Bread)

Kubaneh (Arabic: كبانة ; Hebrew: כֻּבַּאנֶה), is a leavened bread baked in a greased pot with a tightly-sealed lid, where it cooks in its own vapors. Traditionally eaten by the Jews of Yemen on Sabbath days and holidays, the pot is usually placed in an oven (formerly a clay oven where it was laid upon dying embers or coals) shortly before nightfall where it remains until the following day, when it is eaten for the…
Ingredients
- 1 tsp salt
- 2½–3 cups lukewarm water (or enough for kneading dough)
- 1 tsp dried yeast
- 3 tsp white granulated sugar
- 3 cups white, all-purpose wheat flour (optional: try using some sorghum flour)
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil or other fat
- 1 tsp black cumin (Nigella sativa; optional)
Steps
- Dissolve salt in lukewarm water.
- Sprinkle yeast over lukewarm water. Add sugar. Leave 10 min until foamy.
- Add yeast mixture to flour. Knead to form dough.
- Sit 10 min until it begins to rise.
- Knead again. Sit 10 min until it rises. Repeat 3 or 4 times until dough rises to top of bowl with uniform texture.
- Grease baking pot with vegetable oil.
- Divide dough into 8–10 round pieces.
- Place all pieces in pot, compacted together. Fill to one-third of pot capacity. Cover tightly with lid.
- Preheat oven to 225–280°F (107–138°C). Bake 1 hour at higher temperature or 3 hours at lower, until golden brown.
- Turn bread out onto plate. Flip upside down. Return to pot.
- Cover with lid. Bake another hour, or reduce oven to 200 F and bake overnight. If desired, remove from oven and return it only close to the Sabbath.
- Serve hot with clarified butter, usually with tomato salsa mixed with chopped coriander.
Notes from the original
- During the winter months, some had a custom to add to the baking pot along with the Kubaneh a piece of the fatty-tail of sheep, in which case the bread became a meat-dish. When the bread was eaten as a dairy dish, they would pour butter over the dough portions before inserting the pot in the oven.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Kubaneh (Yemenite Pull-Apart Bread)” 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. Kubaneh bread.jpg by Davidbena, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.






