Ash cake

Ash cake (also known as Ash bread; Fire cake) is a type of bread baked over a layer of heated stones or sand and covered-over in hot ashes, a practice still found principally in Arabian countries, especially among Bedouins.

Ash cake
Woman preparing an ash cake over hot sand
Alternative namesAsh bread; Fire cake
TypeFlatbread
Region or stateYemen, Arabia
Main ingredientsDough (flour, yeast, water, salt)

Epiphanius (c. 310–403), in his work entitled On Weights and Measures, brings down an anecdote about the practice of baking ash cakes, and which, in Hebrew, Epiphanius calls ʿuġôth (Hebrew: עֻגות‎), adding that it is the bread described in Genesis 18:6, when Sarah, the wife of Abraham, was enjoined by her husband to knead three measures of fine meal and to bake cakes for the angels.

When the bread (fine flour) has been kneaded and has afterward fermented, it is kneaded again. They bake this bread not in an oven but on a rock. Collecting smooth stones and piling them upon the ground, by means of much brushwood they heat them until they make of the smooth (stones) glowing embers. Then they remove the ashes from them, cover them with dough, and again spread the ashes over all the dough, spreading it out as one loaf, and hence it is called "hidden," because [it is] concealed in the ashes.[1]

According to Epiphanius, the Hebrew name for this bread is derived, etymologically, from its manner of being baked as "bread that is hidden." Once the bread is baked, it is removed from the ashes, and the ashes brushed-off the bread before allowing it to cool.

In northern Yemen, ash cakes were called ğamrī (Arabic: جَمْرِي‎), typically made thick, and baked directly over coals kept in a special vessel made of basalt-stone.[2] In Arabia, ash cake is served with a treacle of date syrup (dibs) and with clarified butter (samn).

See also
  • List of flatbreads

References
  1. Epiphanius (1935). James Elmer Dean (ed.). Epiphanius' Treatise on Weights and Measures - The Syriac Version. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 49. OCLC 123314338.
  2. Mizrachi, Avshalom (2018), "The Yemenite Cuisine", in Rachel Yedid; Danny Bar-Maoz (eds.), Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage, Rehovot: E'ele BeTamar, p. 132, OCLC 1041776317
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