In Lebanon we usually have those biscuits for Easter. In the old times, the women, family and neighbour, used to gather around and bake them in huge quantity all together. That’s how my grandmother did it when she was young. With time the tradition of the gathering faded, but the maamouls remained. And my Teta’s are the best of course!
I have seen her doing them many times, until the day I was brave enough to ask her for the recipe and try them myself. I know I will never ever match either the look or the taste of my grandmother’s maamouls, but I will keep trying until I get close enough.
We do them with various fillings, based either on walnuts, pistachios, dates, etc, and the design on the top of the biscuit indicates what filling it has.
Ingredients for 30 maamouls:
Biscuits:
- 100 g of flour
- 400 g of fine semoulina
- 250 g of soft butter
- 8 to 10 tablespoon of blossom water
- 3 tablespoons of rose water (optional)
- Icing sugar to decorate
Filling:
- 200 g of walnut, or 200 g of pistachio
- 80 g of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of blossom water
If you want to make a dates filling:
- 200 g of dates
- 1 tablespoon of blossom water
- 1 pinch of cinnamon
Times:
- Preparation: 50 mins (but can vary depending on your dexterity)
- Cooking: 10 mins
- Rest: 2 h +
Here is how my grand-mother’s maamouls look like (and how any maamouls should look like according to me obviously 😛 )
For the maamouls, you will need a specific wooden mould, easily found on the net, and not too expensive. If you don’t have them, you can just shape them roughly by hand and design on the top with a folk.
1- The biscuits: Mix the semolina with the flour. Add the soft butter and mix until well combined. Cover with a kitchen towel and leave it for 2 to 3 hours at room temperature (even over night if you can).
2- The filling: Put the walnuts, and the blossom water in the food processor with the sugar and mix them. Don’t over mix it though, as you want to keep the walnut crunchy and not completely grounded.
Step 1:
Warm up a little bit the blossom water, add it to the dough and knead until well combine. Scoop out a little bit of the dough (it should fill roughly your palm hand), shape it into a ball (pic 1) and dig a small well with your finger (pic 2). Fill the hole with one small scoop of walnut mixture (pic 3) and close it by pinching gently each side.
Step 2:
Now you will need the special maamouls wooden mould that you will need to grease with some oil before hand. Put in the mould the filled dough, flattened it a little bit, and hit the edge of the table to make it fall of the mould on the table.
If you don’t have those moulds, you can simply flattened in your hand, the filled dough, and decorate it with a folk on the top, with different design, depending on the filling.
Step 3:
Put the biscuits on the oven tray covered with baking paper, and in the oven at 200 Celsius degrees for 10 to 15 minutes (depending on the oven, just keep an eye on it). The maamouls should keep a white colour and barely golden on the edges.
Let them completely cool down on a wire rack, before spreading the icing sugar all over them.
A maamoul in London