The Kitchen

It gives us great pleasure, in this season of blessed holidays, to present a kind of Lebanese sweet, so that the lady of the house may make the holiday sweets with her own hands and offer them, delicious and clean, to the members of the family.

And here, Madam, are two of the famous sweets that are served especially in this season. They are:

Maamoul and Ghraybeh

1: Maamoul — Ingredients

16 cups (teacups) fine semolina (Damascene), that is, one ratl

4 cups good ghee, that is, 4 uqiyyas

4 cups broken walnuts, that is, 4 uqiyyas

2 cups sugar, that is, 2 uqiyyas, or more according to taste

2 cups fine sugar

One teaspoon yeast, or one teaspoon ammonia

Half a glass of rose water, or half a glass of orange-blossom water

Method

Melt the ghee over the fire and heat it well, then pour it over the semolina. After rubbing it in well, cover it for 6 hours in summer and 12 hours in winter.

Then dissolve the yeast in half a cup of lukewarm water with a teaspoon of sugar. Once it has fermented well — this takes five minutes — pour it over the semolina, then add the orange-blossom or rose water and rub the mixture well so that the dough firms up and becomes like ordinary dough. Then leave it for a quarter of an hour in summer and half an hour in winter. After that, take a piece a little larger than a walnut — or according to whether you want the cake to be large or small — and shape it by hand like a kibbeh disc; then hollow it out, put the filling inside, seal it, place it in the mold made for the pattern, and press on it with your fingers. Then turn it over, tap it out into your other hand, and arrange the pieces in the tray after it has been greased with a little ghee.

The moment it comes out of the oven, immediately sprinkle a quantity of fine sugar over each cake.

As for the way to make the filling, it is a familiar one: mix the quantity of broken walnuts with the sugar and a little rose water or orange-blossom water, letting the proportion of sugar to walnuts follow your own taste.

2: Ghraybeh

You may increase the quantity as needed

2 teacups ghee

2 cups fine sugar

4 cups flour

Method

Beat the ghee well, then gradually add to it the sugar and flour, after mixing them together well, and rub the mixture until it becomes like ordinary dough.

You may, Madam, add a little more ghee if it is stiff, or a little flour mixed with sugar if it is runny. Then take a piece the size of a walnut or larger, roll it in your hand into whatever shape you like, and place it in a tray greased with ghee. It is best to put a peeled almond or a pine nut on top of each cake — and bake it in a low-heat oven, like the maamoul.