New book, new cookies

You would think that with this much time on my hands, I would post more… there are two problems with that

a) With nothing to do, I don’t have anything interesting to write about

b) Doing next to nothing is sucking all the brainpower I have, leaving me a mindless, muse-less zombie.

During the past week, I've gone back to baking a lot, so here is the first of at least 3 baking posts:

At the same time Bella and Nuss bought Uri his amazing chef’s hat, they bought me Shemo’s new baking book. When I opened the book I immediately looked to the “thank you" section, expecting to find my mom’s name in there, since she buys so much things from his bakery I assumed she had a substantial part in making the book a reality. Unfortunately, he did not recognize her contribution. Some people are just so ungrateful…

It took me a while to get around to actually baking something from it. I suppose that if we were in Israel, I would have made something within a week, one of the more decadent cakes or a cheesecake. But I (very sadly) don’t have my baking utensils here and his cheesecake recipes are based on soft cheeses, so the book had to wait on the shelf for a while. However, during our most recent trip to NYC, we stopped at an Israeli grocer, and a bought a pack of date paste, specifically with the thought of making those swirly date filled cookies that you probably all know from your mom, aunt or grandma. I had a very simple recipe for those types of cookies, but I decided to give Shemo’s book a glance too. He has a recipe for Ma’amul cookies, which he fills in the same way (like a roulade). The recipe looked interesting, and I have time to spare – so why not!

To cut an already long story just a bit short – Best date filled cookies ever!

The combination of regular flour and semolina flour gives an awesome texture that’s both moist and crumbly and the flavor is fantastic. I made a bunch of date filled ones, and then a few with Nutella, and a few with orange marmalade. The date ones were irresistible, the Nutella dried up in the oven, so the cookies came out very dry and crisp so if you opt to do that, you need to be conscious of putting a thick slap of filling, otherwise the flavor is lost. The marmalade worked ok – a lot spilled out (though it might have been because I went overboard with the filling) and the cookies where very moist (still good, but different). Note on the semolina for the one or two American bakers that might be reading this – the flour I’m referring to is a middle-eastern flour, that is made from a different king of wheat than regular flour and has a coarser texture. This is not the same as the Italian semolina used for pasta. In the US you can find this type of semolina is Israeli and in Arab grocery stores. If you can’t find it, the best substitute is probably white corn meal.

“Easy” Ma’amul

Ingredients

¾ cup (180 ml) water

½ cup (120 ml) oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp rose water extract (I omitted this)

500 gr (3 ½ cups + 1 tbsp) flour

240 gr (1 ½ cups) semolina (see note above)

10 gr baking powder

300 gr soft butter

Instructions

1. Put water, oil, vanilla and rose water in a bowl of a standing mixer. Add all dry ingredients and butter. Knead on low about 5 minutes, until soft dough is formed.

2. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and let sit in refrigerator for at least an hour (since I made this in batches, the last batch of dough sat in the fridge for 3 days)

3. Preheat oven to 170 C

4. Separate dough into 3 parts. Start with one part: roll it out into a rectangle, about 30 cm in length and ½ cm thick. Spread filling of your choice, and roll into a roulade. (After the first batch came out too thick to my liking, cut each rectangle in half length-wise, and rolled tight cookies.)

5. Cut the roulade into cookies 1.5 – 3 cm thick, place on parchment lined baking sheet and bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes until golden brown.

6. Let cool, and dust with powdered sugar.

7. Repeat with rest of dough.