I love running into something I've never eaten, let alone heard of - so I was delighted when my sister gifted me a box of these cookies from a small bakery in NH. (Betz Baking in Chesterfield, NH)
These are traditional cookies from the MidEast : popular in Syria, Lebanon, and Armenia. The dough is ( I think) made up and pressed into traditional wooden molds, then filled and topped. The dough is delicious : made up of butter , flour, farina, sugar, rose water, and mahlab (ground sour cherry pits); the fillings range from apricot puree, pistachio, date puree with cloves and whiskey, or a date puree with walnuts, cloves, and whiskey.
Wish I could get my hands on one of those molds - I would love to make a sweet potato pastry, or...hummm....marmalade with something like ricotta.
The heavy sprinkling of confectioner's sugar brings out that great detail from the mold - and whoever thought up ground sour cherry pits for part of the dough just astounds me.....
6 comments:
Hi Katrina~
I've never heard of using ground cherry pits before (as you said, who would ever think of that???!) -fascinating.
Hope you get to the grocery store for whatever you may need for the next few days. I'm in s.e. Michigan and we just had about 10" of snow - which is a lot for us. Spent much of the day clearing the driveway and walkway. Stay warm!
Ah Barb - no sooner did the heat come on and I had *LIGHTS*!, then the snow started. Supposed to get a foot or so, then start again Sunday. Sigh. So when did you say we could go Christmas shopping?
I thought the maamouls were fascinating, too - and pretty good, too, even though I'm a French pastry fanatic...
Stay warm, stay sane, and don't let the darkness/cold/snow/ice get to you!
Christmas shopping is highly overrated (ha! ha!) - just give 'em your delicious food and all will be happy!
Is all this snow typical for New Hampshire?
Gee, Barb - nothing I love more than a huge pile of glittering packages - but not this year. Most of the shops are barely open from the ice storm - so food it will be!
Snow - last year was a recordbreaking snowfall in NH, let us hope we don't break the record again!
Hi, I know this is quite a bit late, but I was browsing through your site and saw these beautiful looking cookies and, like you, wondered where I could get the proper molds.
There's a site called Dayna's market which has a selection of gorgous little wooden molds which might be of interest to you. They are at http://www.daynasmarket.com/kitchenware.html Hope this helps!
Vonnie - thank you! What a terrific resource to know about!
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