Lebanese Easter cookies - maa’moul

My friend Jean-Luc gave me a wonderful sweet pastry last week, made all the way in France by his mother. It is a Lebanese Easter cookie called 'maa’moul'. A lovely delicate pastry with nuts or dates inside.

I found some recipes and while not essential, traditionally a maa’moul mould is used to shape them, which is made out of wood. I am making one with Rimu wood and my dremel. I made some maa'moul on the weekend.


Ingredients

400 grams fine semolina,

200 grams frozen butter,

10 grams refined flour,

1 tsp baking powder,

100 grams icing sugar + extra for dusting,

2 tbsp milk,

1 /2tsp orange rind,

Filling 1:

175 grams of a mixture or walnuts and pistachios,

50 grams sugar,

¼ tsp cinnamon powder

1 tbsp. rose water

Filling 2:

300g  pitted dates (if dry, soak them with some hot water for 30 minutes then drain)
1 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of cardamom
1 tbsp. rosewater

Method

Mix together the semolina, flour, baking powder and icing sugar in a bowl.

 

Cut the frozen butter into cubes and add it to the dry ingredients and work it in with your fingers till it resembles bread crumbs. Add the milk and orange rind and make a dough. Let it stand covered for about 3-4 hours. This is an important step as it makes the dough workable.

Preheat the oven to 180^oC.

 

Filling 1: Blend the nuts, rosewater, cinnamon powder and sugar 

Filling 2: Blend the dates, rosewater, cardamom and cinnamon

Take two dough balls one small and one big. Take the bigger dough ball and flatten it into a disc and make a slight depression in the centre. Flatten the smaller dough ball into a disc too. Place some filling in the depression of the bigger disc and place the smaller disc on top and seal the edges. Shape into a flat cookie.

If you want to dust the finished cookies with cinnamon sugar (for a sweeter cookie) then make ridges on the cookie using a fork or traditional maamoul wooden mould.

 Bake for 25 minutes at 180^oC