Iraqi · Dessert
Kleicha bil Tamur
- Intermediate
- 45 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, warm spice humming through the middle.
Ingredients
- 500 g plain flour
- 200 g ghee, melted and cooled to hand warm
- 7 g fast action dried yeast
- 150 ml warm milk
- 30 g caster sugar
- 2 tsp ground cardamom
- 1 tsp ground fennel seed
- half tsp salt
- 400 g soft date paste
- 40 g ghee, for the filling
- 1 tsp ground cardamom, for the filling
- quarter tsp grated nutmeg
- 1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tbsp milk
- 2 tsp nigella seeds
Equipment
Sheet pan · Rolling pin · Grater / zester
The skills inside
Rubbing fat into flourEgg wash & the baker’s shine
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Rub the melted ghee into the flour, sugar, cardamom, fennel and salt until the mixture looks like damp sand and holds its shape when squeezed in a fist.
- Stir the yeast into the warm milk, work it in to a soft dough that stops sticking to the bowl, and leave it covered until it has puffed and smells faintly of bread, about an hour.
- Knead the date paste with the 40 g ghee, cardamom and nutmeg over a low heat until it is hand warm and drops off the back of a spoon like putty.
- Roll the dough into two rectangles 3 mm thick, spread the paste right to the edges, roll each into a tight log and cut into 1.5 cm slices laid cut face up on a lined tray.
- Brush with the yolk wash, scatter the nigella and bake at 180C (350F) until the dough is set and just straw coloured at the rim, 15 to 18 minutes, then cool on the tray until firm. 18 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Egg wash & the baker’s shine 34 recipes
- Applied thin and even over every surface that will show, with no bare patches and no ridges or brush lines standing in it.
- Nothing pooled: no wash run down into the seams, collected in the corners, or welded to the tray around the base.
- It has not glued shut what needs to move: layers, scores, and cut edges are still free to open in the heat.
- Baked, the finish is even and glossy across the whole piece and deep gold rather than patchy, with no darker bands where the wash sat heavy.
- The shine is on the outside only: nothing inside the piece tastes of egg.
Where it goes wrong The wash went on heavy and ran into the scores and down to the tray, so the piece baked sealed along its seams, browned unevenly, and carries dark rubbery ridges where the egg collected.
Rubbing fat into flour 47 recipes
- The fat is cold when it starts and still firm when the rubbing stops, and the bowl has not warmed under the hands.
- Stopped early, while it still looks like coarse crumbs with pieces of fat visible in it, not worked on to a smooth even sand, which means the pieces have gone.
- Nothing is greasy or glossy and nothing has smeared into a paste against the side of the bowl.
- Liquid added last and only enough to bring it together: pressed, it just holds, with no wet patch and nothing sticking to the hand.
- Rested cold before it is rolled or shaped, so the gluten relaxes and the fat firms again after being handled.
Where it goes wrong The fat was too warm, or it was rubbed until the mixture looked uniform. Once the fat has melted into the flour there are no solid pieces left to steam apart in the oven, so the bake is sandy or tough instead of flaky, and nothing done later puts those layers back.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
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- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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