Gata (Armenian Coffee Cake)

At its most basic, a gata—also known as “kata”, “gatah”, or “katah”, depending upon who’s doing the transliteration—is a lightly sweetened, buttery Armenian cake, bread, or pastry meant to be served as part of a mezze (appetizer) spread, or with coffee or tea, or as a dessert. 

Different Types of Gata

Some gata resemble croissants, made from an enriched bread dough rolled into paper-thin, table-wide sheets using an “okhlavoo” (a wooden dowel dedicated to dough work), smeared with butter, rolled up like a carpet and cut into spirals that bake up layered and crisp. Others are sweeter and decidedly more cake-like, whether they're made with a yeast- or baking soda/acidic dairy-leavened dough (baking powder was, until very recently, unknown in Armenia, so most chemically-leavened baked goods are made using a combination of baking soda and an acidic dairy like yogurt or sour cream). This latter style is usually formed into a flattened disc and filled with a single layer of a butter, flour, sugar, vanilla, and (sometimes) chopped nut paste known as khoritz, a mixture that's essentially the Armenian equivalent of streusel. These more simple gata are often dressed up with decorative strips of dough or by scoring patterns onto the top before baking.

When I set out to develop a gata recipe for Serious Eats, I was faced with the dilemma of deciding which style to choose from among so many. I didn’t grow up eating gata, and what I knew of the dish came from cookbooks and stories of friends and family who had eaten it on trips to Armenia. I knew I wanted something on the sweeter end of the spectrum—more coffee cake than savory bread—and I wanted to keep the preparation relatively simple. Which meant that the okhlavoo-rolled version was out; rolling out transparently-thin sheets of dough without tearing requires a lot of practice, not to mention miles of counter space. Since I am a bread person, and I knew I wanted some yeast in the picture, I chose to go with a walnut khoritz-filled cake made with a yeasted dough.

The Secret to Tender Gata Dough

The dough I created is buttery and tender, thanks in great part to the fact that it is moistened almost entirely with Greek yogurt. A single egg helps give the crust structure and lends it a pale yellow color, while a touch of baking soda helps to further lighten the gata’s crumb. As for the fermentation itself, I leave the dough at room temperature for 30 minutes to get a jump-start on proofing before it goes into the refrigerator for at least four hours (or as long as overnight). Chilling the sticky, moist dough in the fridge while it proofs makes it easier to roll out and shape when the time comes. 

Shaping Gata

My favorite thing about this gata—aside from its good looks and deliciousness—may be the way it’s shaped, which is both straightforward and forgiving: Once you've pressed and rolled the dough out into a 12-inch-wide round, you place the filling in the center of it, fold and pleat the dough over the filling until it's fully enclosed, and then you press and roll it into a disc again. It’s pretty easy to do, but the good news is—unlike other, similar preparations, like dumplings, which I’ve found are a challenge to shape prettily without lots of practice—the gata is very forgiving, because the dough is Play-Doh-malleable and the pleated part ends up on the underside, hiding any imperfections. As for the ornamentation, I opt for a simple crisscross pattern made with the tines of a fork on the top of the dough created, along with pleats around the outer rim. I mention this below, but it bears repeating: the dough puffs up as it bakes, softening the edges of the pleats and lines, so you should make them as sharp and dramatic as possible if you want traces of your art to remain.