Moroccan · Dessert
Makroud
- Intermediate
- 55 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a sweet edge rounding the corners, a floral thread lifting the aroma, fading in warm spice.
Ingredients
- 400 g coarse semolina
- 100 g fine semolina
- 120 ml olive oil
- 60 g unsalted butter, melted
- 3 g fine salt
- 150 ml warm water, approximately
- 300 g pitted Deglet Nour dates
- 2 g ground cinnamon
- 30 ml orange blossom water, 15 ml for the dates and 15 ml for the syrup
- 1 litre sunflower oil, for frying
- 500 g honey
- 80 ml water, for the syrup
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy
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 olive oil and melted butter through both semolinas with your fingertips for 3 minutes, until every grain is slick and a squeezed handful holds its shape, then cover and leave it to rest for at least 2 hours and preferably overnight. 3 min
- Dissolve the salt in the warm water and add it a little at a time, gathering the dough with a flat hand rather than kneading, and stop the moment it coheres.
- Blend the dates with the cinnamon and 15 ml of the orange blossom water to a smooth paste, roll it into ropes the thickness of a finger, and case each rope in a flattened log of dough.
- Press a comb along the top, cut on the diagonal into 4 cm diamonds, and fry at 160C (320F) until pale gold and the bubbling has slowed to a whisper, about 7 minutes. 7 min
- Warm the honey with the 80 ml water and the remaining orange blossom water to 40C (104F) in a small deep pan, drop the pieces in straight from the fryer for 2 minutes so they stay submerged, then lift them onto a rack. 2 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Shaping by hand 85 recipes
- The pieces match: weighed, or judged against each other rather than by dividing the mass by eye, so that no piece is half again the size of its neighbour.
- Surfaces are smooth and unbroken with no cracks, tears, or dry patches, and the seams are sealed and sitting underneath.
- The shape is defined and it holds while the tray waits: it has not slumped, spread, or relaxed back out of its form.
- Nothing is trapped that should not be: no air pocket where filling should be, no filling breaking through the surface, and no excess flour greying the outside.
- They finish together in the heat: no piece done while another is still raw, which is the only test that the first mark was met.
Where it goes wrong The dough was worked past its point or shaped without a rest, so it fought back: the pieces spring out of shape on the tray and bake tight, uneven, and torn along the surface.
At the Table
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The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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