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I’m particularly excited to introduce this recipe to you.  These cookies were the backdrop to my childhood in Beirut watching my mum and her friends come together and spend a happy morning making them in industrial quantities and now, I make them, in much smaller amounts, with my two sons in London.  Since they were tiny until now when they’re 19 and 17, they have always loved getting involved. Making these cookies is like playing with plasticine except that it’s much more gratifying. First off, you have something delicious to show for your time at the end and secondly, the mess is much easier to clean up.  So, as we speed up to the summer holidays, this could be the ideal baking project to fill up at least one of the roughly 42 calendar days between now and back to school in September.

I have always made them using semolina instead of flour so that the dough needs to be soaked overnight.  But cleverly Suzanne and Rawah in their beautiful new cookbook Egypt, have provided us with a more instant gratification recipe. Though the dough still, like all other cookie dough, needs at least 30 minutes in the fridge to chill. Before embarking on this project, do pay a visit to an Arabic or Persian food shop both  to make your life easier and to make these cookies taste even more spectacular.  See below for what you should buy (spoiler alert: date paste, mahlab and mastic spices).

Based on my experience with this recipe, these two ladies have succeeded brilliantly in their mission with this book: the reimagining of traditional recipes for the modern home cook.  I have fallen in love with these cookies and will immediately adopt this recipe into our family favourites folder. I think you will too.  We had to restrain ourselves from wolfing the whole lot in one go. The outer casing of the cookie is crumbly and buttery with the filling so unctuous and satisfying.   Sesame seeds add texture and the dates pack a punch both for the sweet toothed amongst us and nutritionally.

A word on the method which I elaborate on below.  You need to roll with your hands balls of dough and equal balls of filling.  You then flatten the dough out using both palms of your hands and put the filling in the middle of the flattened circle of dough and then tuck it in.  This is easy and fun, it just takes some getting used to.  Also, it is very difficult to accurately estimate how much dough or filling you’ll make so bring in the kitchen scales and use them so that you get the correct ratio of dough to filling (I suggest 3:1).  This is not just a cooking project, it’s a maths lesson.  Weigh out the balls of filling, aim for at least 10g each and make the dough balls 3 times as heavy (so 30g for the dough balls).  Play around with whatever you have leftover but this should yield at least 11 substantial cookies.  We ran out of filling so the leftover dough we filled with a mix of coconut jam and almonds (great success here too!).

ANGELA’S SUGGESTIONS:

As I indicated, this is a bake that’s very close to my heart so I wouldn’t be able to sleep easily if I didn’t suggest the following with regards to this recipe.  In the main, these are simple flavour additions to make the cookies even more delicious.  But date paste does take the sting out of hard work.

1. Add 1 tsp of mahlab to the dough. Mahlab is an aromatic spice derived from the tiny seed kernels inside the pits of the St. Lucie cherry tree. Flavour wise, this is similar to almonds but much more interesting as it brings a sweet bitterness, a rare and addictive dimension.  If you’re a keen baker, this spice will be transformative.  Add it to your shopping list. Others must have items in my pantry listed here.
2. Use date paste: this is a nice shortcut and you won’t have to wait for the dates to combine.
3. Add 1 tsp of cinnamon and mastic to the date filling- I do go on about mastic and this previous Recipe of the Month explains why.
4. When we made these cookies, we were a bit confused as to quantities as we felt we had so much dough and not enough dates to fill it all.  We ended up making 11 date cookies and 6 cookies which we stuffed with coconut jam mixed with almonds (just a random combination made up based on what we had to hand). So we had 11 balls of the date filling, 16g each and 11 balls of dough 38g.  We didn’t get the maths right but we’ll be practicing, a lot.

Angela Zaher is a freelance writer based in London.  Her articles have been published in The Evening Standard, Delicious, Platinum, Good Housekeeping and Business Insider. Find her on instagram @angela_zaher

Date & Sesame Filled Cookies

From Egypt: Recipes and Stories from an Ancient Land by Rawah Badrawi and Suzanne Zeidy

Makes 16 cookies

Ingredients:

• 300g (10½ oz/2¼ cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
• 50g (1¾oz/5¾ tbsp) icing (powdered) sugar
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds
• ½ tsp salt
• 200g (7oz) clarified butter or ghee, melted
• 1 tsp fast action dried yeast
• 25ml (1fl oz/2 tbsp) lukewarm water
• Icing (powdered) sugar, for dusting

For the date and sesame filling

• 120g (4¼oz) pitted medjool dates
• 25g (1oz/2 tbsp) unsalted butter
• 3 tbsp sesame seeds

Method:

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, combine the flour, sugar, sesame seeds and salt. Add the butter and mix at medium speed just until incorporated.

In a small bowl mix the yeast with the water and gradually add to the dough, mixing continuously for 1–2 minutes until the dough holds together. Shape into a ball, cover and set aside in the fridge for 30 minutes.

To prepare the filling, finely chop the dates. Melt the butter in a small pan over a low–medium heat. Add the chopped dates and sesame seeds, stir to combine and cook for a few minutes over a low-medium heat until you have a paste that you can mould into balls. Leave to cool, then shape into 16 small balls.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan), Gas 4 and line a baking sheet with baking paper.

To form the kahk, divide the rested dough into 16 portions and roll into balls. In your hands, flatten each ball into a concave disc, add a ball of date sesame filling into the middle of the disc, then wrap the disc to completely close the dough around the filling. Arrange the balls on the lined baking sheet, seam side down and with space in between each cookie and imprint a design on the top if desired, using either a mould or the tines of a fork.

Bake for 12–13 minutes until golden.

Leave to cool, then dust with icing sugar to serve.

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