Ma’amoul-Syria Easter Cookies

Be it Easter or Eid, holidays in Syria are incomplete without maamoul, these buttery cookies are the perfect reward after a month of fasting during Ramadan or Lent.

Ma’amoul cookies feature a buttery crisp cookie primarily made of wheat flour or semolina (or a combination of the two). The cookies can either be stuffed with sweet spiced dates, walnuts, or pistachios. These cookies are somewhat similar to shortbread. Ka’ek is commonly known in Syria as the one stuffed with dates, and ma’amoul on the other hand is stuffed with nuts, either walnuts or pistachios.

Syrian Christian mothers work earlier in the week, the week that precedes Easter Sunday – the Holy Week- to prepare Easter cookies so they can be ready on Easter day.

Making these cookies can be time-consuming not just because of the process of making and decorating them but also due to the large quantities everyone makes. So the cookies can be shared with friends and family during the exchange visits that take place on Easter Sunday. That’s how things usually are in Syria , and that is the excitement of the holiday.

Neighbors and families gather to support and help one another in making the ka’ek and maamoul. The kids and teenagers would gather around their mothers sitting around a big table. While they are rolling ka’ek and doming maamoul, kids are in charge of decorating.

 

Exciting times of an atmosphere filled with love, laughter, and the holiday spirit.

There are two types of Easter sweets, ka’ek and maamoul. People often mix the names, or at least that’s how we call it. Ka’ek is a round-shaped cookie stuffed with dates. Maamoul is the one that looks more like a dome and is stuffed with either walnuts or pistachios.

For Syrian Christians these cookies symbolize Easter, ka’ek is considered a symbol of the crown that was placed on Jesus’s head during the crucifixion, and maamaoul symbolizes the sponge that was filled with water and squeezed over his face. when he asked for water.

 

Maamoul dough recipe:

200 gm butter (room temperature)

200 gm margarine (room temperature) or ghee (melted)

1 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup powder milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon yeast

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground fennel seeds

1/2 teaspoon ground mahlab

1/4 teaspoon mastic, ground finely

1 kg flour.

Filling recipe

500 gm chopped walnuts and 1/2 cup sugar with 2 tablespoons orange blossom water, 2 tablespoons butter or ghee and 1 tablespoon cinnamon

 

Preparation:

Beat the butter margarine and oil in the food processor, stand mixer or in a bowl with a whisk

Add the eggs and vanilla and beat till the mix is pale in color.

Add the sugar and powdered milk and beat till the mix is creamy and homogenous

Add the yeast, baking powder, mastic, mahlab and ground fennel

Add the flour slowly, one cup at a time and knead the dough till you get a smooth and soft dough. You may not need the whole amount of flour, stop when you get smooth dough.

Allow the dough to rest for one hour

Cut the dough into egg sized balls.

Place the dough in a mold, press firmly but do not overdo it or the maamoul will stick to the mold.

Place a kitchen towel on a cutting board or your kitchen table

Then invert the mold and tap the end of the mold on the kitchen towel and the formed cookie will fall out.

Bake maamoul on the middle rack of a preheated oven (230 C) till the edges are golden brown (5-12 minutes) and then place them under the broiler till the tops are golden brown (2-5 minutes)

Take the cookies out of the oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 10- 15 minutes then move them to a cooling rack because they are proun to crumble if you move them when they are still hot

 

Lara Khouli