Arabic shortbread filled with Dates & Nuts - Ma’amoul
Arabic Shortbread filled with Dates & Nuts - Ma’amoul معمول معمول
These are shortbread pastries traditionally filled with dates, pistachios, or walnuts (or occasionally almonds, figs or other fillings). They are popular in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and other Levantine countries.
I made them using this recipe . I am hopeless in writing my own recipes myself. So I found this recipe which is very close to the ingredients and measurements I use. This website is great it has some amazing authentic recipes.
Total Time:45 Minutes
Prep Time:25 Minutes
Cook Time:20 Minutes
•2 cups all purpose flour
•1 cup semolina flour
•1 tsp baking powder
•¼ cup milk
•100g butter at room temperature
•1 tsp orange blossom water
•1 Maamoul Mold
Filling
•1 cup ground walnuts
•¼ cup sugar
•¼ tsp cinnamon
•1 tsp orange blossom water
•8 medjool dates, pitted
•1 tsp orange blossom water
•vegetable oil
•powdered sugar
DIRECTIONS
Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, combine flour, semolina and baking powder, mix well.
Next, add butter, milk and orange blossom water to dry ingredients and combine until dough is formed.
In a food processor, blend walnuts until fine and crumbly, pour walnuts into bowl and add sugar, cinnamon and orange blossom water.
Next, put the dates into the food processor and blend until it is formed into a fine ball, remove and add orange blossom water, set aside.
To form maamoul cookies, roll dough into balls, smaller than golf balls, poke an indent into the ball and place some of the filling inside, close the opening until all of the filling is concealed.
Next, wipe down the maamoul mold with some vegetable oil so that dough does not stick, press ball into the maamoul mold and then tap our the cookie by hitting the mold on the side.
Place the cookies on a non-stick baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, until bottom of the cookie is light brown. Remove cookies and let cool completely, dust cookies completely with powdered sugar and store in an air tight container for up to 2 weeks.
