Izmir Bakery · Sephardic Pastry

Boyoz

Photo: Originally created and uploaded to the Turkish Wikipedia by tr:User:ZorCoCuK / Wikimedia Commons · CC0

It's so tied to Izmir that bakers elsewhere in Turkey rarely make it, and the dough is left to rest in oil for hours to build its flaky layers.

A flaky, coiled pastry made from a simple dough of flour, water and salt that is rested in oil and stretched very thin, sometimes enriched with tahini, boyoz is baked until deep golden and often served with a boiled egg and a glass of tea for breakfast. Izmir's old bakeries turn them out fresh every morning, still warm from the oven.

Why it's made this way: Izmir absorbed a large Sephardic Jewish community after the Spanish expulsion, and their Ladino-named pastry (boyoz comes from the Spanish "bollo") became woven into the city's everyday food culture.