Maamoul
These maamoul are made mostly with semolina rather than flour, and that forces one unusual step: the dough must rest overnight so the semolina grains absorb the butter and soften. Baked straight away they are sandy and dry. After a night the same mixture gives a short, melting shell around the filling.
Your own work in that: 35 min.
- Dough 25 min
- Overnight rest 660 min
- Filling 20 min
- Shaping 35 min
- Baking 20 min
- Cooling 40 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneRub warm butter into the semolina
Mix the semolina with the flour and sugar, pour over the warm melted butter and rub with your hands for 5 minutes, until it looks like damp sand. Warm butter penetrates the semolina grains; cold butter only coats them and will not soften them overnight.
Ingredients: 400 g semolina · 100 g plain flour · 250 g butter · 40 g sugar · 3 g dried yeast · 2 tbsp orange blossom water · 80 ml milk
Damp sand — the mixture does not hold together yet.Leave overnight at room temperature
Cover and leave for 11 hours. Don't cut this step short: the semolina has to take up the fat. By morning the mixture is noticeably firmer and better to handle than it was the night before.
Ingredients: 400 g semolina · 100 g plain flour · 250 g butter · 40 g sugar · 3 g dried yeast · 2 tbsp orange blossom water · 80 ml milk
Add the yeast and orange blossom water
Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk, add the orange blossom water and work it into the mixture without kneading, simply squeezing it in your hands until it holds together. If it still crumbles, add another spoonful of milk. Kneading as for bread would develop gluten and the cookies would turn hard.
Ingredients: 400 g semolina · 100 g plain flour · 250 g butter · 40 g sugar · 3 g dried yeast · 2 tbsp orange blossom water · 80 ml milk
Prepare both fillings
Blitz the dates with the butter and cinnamon into a smooth paste and roll 15 balls of about 13 g (the size of a large hazelnut). Mix the nuts with the sugar and rose water — enough for the other 15 cookies. The filling must be cohesive — a loose one scatters as you close the dough around it.
Ingredients: 180 g dates · 15 g butter · 1 tsp cinnamon
Date balls the size of a hazelnut.Shape by hand or in a wooden mould
Heat the oven to 170°C. Divide the dough into 30 balls of about 30 g. Take a ball of dough, press a hollow with your thumb, add the filling and close the dough around it, smoothing the seam. Press into a carved wooden mould and tap it out against the worktop. Without a mould, press a pattern with a fork or crimping tongs.
Ingredients: 400 g semolina · 100 g plain flour · 250 g butter · 40 g sugar · 3 g dried yeast · 2 tbsp orange blossom water · 80 ml milk
Seam smoothed, pattern pressed in the mould.Bake 20 minutes without browning
Bake at 170°C for 18–20 minutes. Maamoul should stay pale, barely cream coloured — a golden top means overbaked, and the moulded pattern disappears under colour. Lightly golden bases are enough.
Cool fully before dusting
Cool on the tray for 40 minutes — hot maamoul are fragile and break as you lift them. Icing sugar goes on cold cookies only; on warm ones it dissolves and vanishes.
Ingredients: 100 g walnuts · 50 g pistachios · 35 g sugar · 1 tbsp rose water · 60 g icing sugar
Before you start
The shape says what is inside
In Lebanon and Syria the shape customarily tells you the filling: a flat disc usually means dates, a dome walnuts, an oval pistachios (households vary). Worth keeping to one system if you make two kinds at once — otherwise you have to break them open to check.
They keep three weeks
In a tin, somewhere cool. These are cookies designed for festivals and for travelling — the high butter content and little water mean they stay fresh for a long time.
Without flower waters
Substitute a teaspoon of vanilla extract and some orange zest. It will not be maamoul in the strict sense, but the cookies stay very good — flower waters taste soapy to many people, and it is better to leave them out than to ruin a whole batch.
