Ma'amoul (Date-Filled Semolina Cookies)

Ingredients

• 300 g semolina, fine
• 60 g wheat flour
• 150 g butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm
• 3 tbsp powdered sugar, plus extra for dusting
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 tsp dry yeast
• 5⅓ tbsp milk, lukewarm
• 2 tbsp orange blossom water
• 1 tbsp rose water
• 250 g date, pitted
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp orange zest

Method

1. 1.

   Rub the butter into the semolina — Stir the semolina, flour and salt together in a large bowl, pour over the lukewarm melted butter and rub it through with your fingertips until every grain is coated and the mixture looks like damp sand that holds its shape when squeezed in a fist.

2. 2.

   Rest the semolina — Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature for at least an hour, and overnight if you can. The semolina drinks the butter and softens in this rest, and skipping it is what makes a gritty ma'amoul.

3. 3.

   Bring the dough together — Stir the yeast and powdered sugar into the lukewarm milk and leave it for 5 minutes, until a fine foam covers the surface. Add the orange blossom and rose water, then pour the lot into the rested semolina and bring it together with a light hand — press and fold only until it holds, because kneading turns ma'amoul tough.

4. 4.

   Make the date filling — Blitz or pound the dates with the cinnamon, nutmeg and orange zest to a smooth, pliable paste. If it is stiff, work in a teaspoon of warm water. Roll it into 18 marbles the size of a large hazelnut.

5. 5.

   Shape and mould the cookies — Take about 30 g of dough, roll it into a ball and press a deep well into it with your thumb, thinning the walls as you turn. Drop in a date marble, pinch the dough closed over it and roll smooth, then press the sealed ball seam-side down into a ma'amoul mould and knock it out onto a lined tray. Without a mould, flatten each one slightly and pattern the top with the tines of a fork.

6. 6.

   Bake them pale — Bake at 170°C for 16 to 18 minutes. They must stay pale — the barest blush of colour on the underside is all you want, and the tops should still look raw. A browned ma'amoul is a dry ma'amoul.

7. 7.

   Cool and dust with sugar — Leave them on the tray for 20 minutes without touching them — they are fragile while hot and firm up as they cool. Once cold, dust them thickly with powdered sugar and store in a tin, where they keep for two weeks and improve after the first day.