Hello and happy spring! My excuses for the long delay in posting are all wonderful. 1) The weather has been beautiful, giving us many opportunities for long weekend and evening walks and socially distant outdoor gatherings with friends we’ve missed seeing over the long, dark Seattle winter, 2) I’m now in candidacy for my PhD and fully focused on my dissertation work, and 3) I have been volunteering with the COVID vaccination effort! It has truly been a hopeful and regenerative month in many ways.
This past weekend we attended an outdoor gathering of Arabic speakers in Seattle (full disclosure – my Arabic is poor at best, except for the food words), and Omar suggested we bring ma’amoul to share. Ma’amoul are buttery, crumbly cookies made with semolina flour and filled with sweet date paste or sugared nuts, usually pistachio or walnuts, and flavored with rose and orange blossom water. They are eaten in vast quantities during Ramadan and Eid along with other sweets and tea or coffee. Ma’amoul are also near and dear to us because we served them as our wedding dessert (along with another sweet cheese dessert called halawet al-jibn, which I have yet to attempt at home!).
I was very excited to try my hand at Anissa Helou’s recipe from Feast: Food of the Islamic World. There are a lot of steps to follow, but none were particularly difficult. You start with mixing a dough from fine semolina, flour, sugar, yeast, and a whole lot of butter, which requires a full 90 minutes to rest and hydrate. While you wait, you will have plenty of time to make the fillings. We made half date and half pistachio, though you could fully commit to just one type of filling. Walnuts could easily be swapped in for the pistachios if you prefer. To make the nut filling, coarsely grind the pistachios or walnuts with sugar, cinnamon, orange blossom and rose waters. The date filling is simply dates, butter, and cinnamon. While Anissa’s recipe calls for pre-made date paste, I just made my own from Medjool dates and a bit of warm water to ease the process of pureeing in the food processor. The process of stuffing the ma’amoul will go faster if you make the date filling into little disks with damp hands and set aside until you are ready to use.
Actually forming the ma’amoul does take a bit of finesse and a small investment in a clever little tool called a tabe. They are easily found online and in Middle Eastern and Indian groceries (usually <US$10), and are essential for producing the characteristic ma’amoul shapes, either a domed, flat-bottomed cone or oval with a geometric pattern, or a flat disk with a floral pattern (the latter looks like a smaller, flatter Chinese mooncake). The tabe isn’t just for aesthetics – it will also make the process of forming and stuffing the ma’amoul much faster and easier. Here is the process that worked best of us: pinch of a piece of dough, flatten into a circle, and then press into the tabe. Follow with a disk of date paste or a few teaspoons of the nut filling. Make a smaller disk of dough and press on top of the date filling to seal. Then give a good thwak! into the palm of your hand to free the ma’amoul from the tabe and place on a baking sheet.
The results were well worth the effort! Someone at the picnic even said they were the best ma’amoul they had ever had, which is high praise – but I have to agree, this recipe is absolutely fantastic. The cookie to filling ratio is spot on and the floral flavorings are subtle and delicate.
Ma’amoul will keep for a few weeks in an airtight container, but good luck not eating them within a few days! The freezer is a safer option if you have a very sweet tooth. 🙂
Date & Pistachio Ma'amoul
Slightly adapted from Anissa Helou’s “Feast: Food of the Islamic World”
Ingredients
- 350g fine semolina
- 50g all-purpose flour, plus more for worktop
- 75g sugar, divided
- 165g unsalted butter at room temperature, divided
- 1/4 tsp instant yeast
- 3 Tbsp plus 3/4 tsp orange blossom water
- 3 Tbsp plus 3/4 tsp rose water
- 175g Medjool or other soft dates, pitted
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon, divided
- 90g pistachios (or walnuts)
- Confectioner’s sugar to finish
Directions
- Mix the semolina, flour, 50g sugar, 150g butter, and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until combined. Add 3 Tbsp orange blossom water and 3 Tbsp rose water and mix again. At this point the dough should look like wet sand. Use your hands and firm pressure to form the dough into a ball and place on a floured worktop, cover with a damp paper towel and set aside for 90 minutes.
- While dough is resting, make the date and/or nut fillings.
- To make the date filling: Place dates, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1 Tbsp butter in a food processor along with 1 Tbsp warm water and process until smooth; up to 1 additional Tbsp water can be added if your dates are really hard and dry. Divide into 20 smaller balls and with damp hands, form into small disks. Set aside.
- To make the nut filling: Place pistachios or walnuts in a food processor along with 25g sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 3/4 tsp each orange blossom and rose water. Grind until nuts are a bit coarser than bread crumbs. Set aside.
- When dough is fully rested, preheat the oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with parchment. Flour your tabe (ma’amoul mold).
- To make the ma’amoul, pinch off a ping-pong to golf-ball sized ball of dough (depending on the size of your tabe) and flatten to a 1/8-inch thin disk. Gently press the disk into the floured tabe, then add either a disk of date paste or ~2 tsp of sugared nuts. Pinch off another small piece of dough and flatten, then use it to cover the date or walnut filling and pinch to seal. Firmly tap the tabe into the palm of your hand to release the ma’amoul and place on a baking sheet.
- Bake the ma’amoul for 16-17 minutes until just golden brown on the edges. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- When fully cool, dust with confectioner’s sugar.
