Chebakia

Ingredients

• Flour600 g
• Sesame seeds200 g
• Almonds100 g
• Butter100 g
• Aniseed1 tbsp
• Cinnamon1 tbsp
• Saffron1 pinch
• Orange blossom water60 ml
• Vinegar1 tbsp
• Dry yeast5 g
• Honey800 g
• Oil for frying1.5 l
• Salt1 tsp

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Toast a hundred and fifty grams of the sesame and the almonds in a dry pan and grind them to a coarse paste.

   18 min

2. 2

   Mix the flour with the nut paste, aniseed, cinnamon, saffron, yeast and salt.

   8 min

3. 3

   Add the melted butter, orange blossom water, vinegar and warm water and knead fifteen minutes to a smooth dough.

   18 min

4. 4

   Rest the dough an hour under film.

   62 min

5. 5

   Roll it thin, cut it into rectangles and make four lengthways slits in each.

   25 min

6. 6

   Thread your fingers through alternate slits and twist each piece into a flower, pinching the ends.

   35 min

7. 7

   Fry at 165 °C for four minutes to golden, drop them straight into warm honey for five minutes and scatter with sesame.

   40 min

About the dish

The biscuits go from the fryer straight into warm honey for five minutes. Hot dough draws the honey inward rather than staying sticky outside — that is the whole technique.

The honey has to be warm but never boiling. Overheated honey turns bitter and thin, and the biscuits simply soak through to sogginess.

Chebakia is made a week before Ramadan and kept in tins. It is eaten with harira every evening of the month, and one batch lasts a family through it.

Worth knowing

• — Loosen the honey with a spoon of orange blossom water. Neat honey is too thick and the biscuits will not take it up in five minutes.
• — Lift them out with a slotted spoon and let the honey drain on a rack. Stacked straight away they fuse into one lump.
• — Practise the shape on a few pieces first. Almost nobody twists the flower correctly on the first attempt.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

480 kcal

Protein

8 g

Fat

22 g

Carbs

66 g

More from Morocco

• Chicken tagine with preserved lemon — Chicken braised with preserved lemons and olives. The sourness comes from the peel, not the flesh.
• Harira — A thick soup of lentils, chickpeas and tomato, bound with a flour slurry and finished with lemon.
• Pastilla — A layered pie of pigeon or chicken with almonds and cinnamon, dusted with icing sugar.