Ghraybeh
Levantine cookies of three basic ingredients — clarified butter, icing sugar and flour — whose whole point is that they must not brown. They should come out as white as they went in and collapse at the first bite. Two things achieve it: very long beating of the butter, which aerates the dough, and a low-temperature bake from which they are lifted before they take any colour.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Beating the butter 15 min
- Chilling 90 min
- Shaping 20 min
- Baking 18 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneBeat butter and sugar for ten minutes
Beat the soft clarified butter with the icing sugar for a full 10 minutes, until snow white and fluffy. This is the only aeration in the dough — there are no eggs and no raising agent, so a shorter beating gives hard cookies.
Ingredients: 250 g clarified butter · 150 g icing sugar · 380 g plain flour · 1 pinch salt · 1 tbsp orange blossom water
Ten minutes — the mixture must go snow white and fluffy.Butter soft, never melted
The butter must have the consistency of thick paste, not liquid. Melted, it holds no air during beating, the dough spreads on the tray and instead of short rings you get thin greasy discs.
Ingredients: 250 g clarified butter · 150 g icing sugar · 380 g plain flour · 1 pinch salt · 1 tbsp orange blossom water
Fold in the flour in three additions
Add the flour with the salt in three additions, mixing at the lowest speed only until combined. The dough should be soft and smooth. Longer mixing knocks out the air built over ten minutes of beating.
Ingredients: 250 g clarified butter · 150 g icing sugar · 380 g plain flour · 1 pinch salt · 1 tbsp orange blossom water
Add the orange blossom water
Stir in the orange blossom water at the end, one spoonful. It gives ghraybeh their Levantine character — but do not overdo it, since above two spoons the aroma turns perfumed and smothers the butter.
Ingredients: 250 g clarified butter · 150 g icing sugar · 380 g plain flour · 1 pinch salt · 1 tbsp orange blossom water
Chill the dough an hour and a half
Wrap in film and chill 90 minutes. Warm dough spreads on the tray — chilled, it holds the ring shape. Do not skip it — warm dough is a typical cause of spread cookies.
Ingredients: 250 g clarified butter · 150 g icing sugar · 380 g plain flour · 1 pinch salt · 1 tbsp orange blossom water
Shape thin rings
Roll ropes the thickness of a finger and 10 cm long, joining the ends into a ring. The classic ghraybeh shape is exactly that, or an S. Work fast — the dough softens from the warmth of your hands.
Ingredients: 250 g clarified butter · 150 g icing sugar · 380 g plain flour · 1 pinch salt · 1 tbsp orange blossom water
A finger-thick rope closed into a ring.Press a pistachio on the join
Press one whole pistachio exactly where the ends meet. The pistachio is not only decoration — pressing it closes the ring, which would otherwise open during baking.
Ingredients: 28 pcs pistachios
Bake low, do not brown
Bake 16–18 minutes at 150°C. The cookies must stay completely white — only the bases may turn faintly gold. Cool them on the tray, since hot they crumble at the lightest touch.
Ingredients: 28 pcs pistachios
White out of the oven — only the bases faintly gold.
Before you start
Clarified butter, not ordinary
Clarified butter, samna, contains no water or milk proteins, so the cookies are shorter and do not brown. Ordinary butter tastes good but the cookies take colour more quickly — and in ghraybeh whiteness is part of the identity.
Icing sugar, never granulated
Granulated sugar will not dissolve in a dough with no water and stays as crunchy grains. Icing sugar is so fine that it disappears into the fat and gives a uniform, smooth, melting texture.
Three weeks in a tin
Ghraybeh keep three weeks in an airtight tin and barely change — there is no moisture in them to soften. Layer them with paper, as they are very fragile and rub each other to crumbs.
