I’m 100% hooked on The Great British Bake Off (or GBBO if you wanna sound really cool) and I usually settle down to watch it with a homemade bake inspired by the week’s theme. This week, it was spice week and the contestants were set a challenge to create two batches of mamul (or ma’amoul) – an ancient Arab pastry filled with dried fruit and nuts. It reminded me of a pastry I attempted a while back and I was quite convinced I would have aced that bake off challenge! The contestants were miffed at the obscurity of it.
From time to time (when I have time) I like to challenge myself and bake something that seems elaborate or complicated to me. One such day, I decided to bake ‘shekerbura’, a traditional pastry from the Caucasus region filled with ground nuts (hazelnut, walnut or almond). It is commonly consumed during the Persian new year celebrations (Nowruz). I found a recipe online and spent hours beating, kneading, shaping, pinching and finally, baking.
The result was well worth the time and labour, given the reception these got from those who tasted them. It was whole grain month in the European Food Information Council, where I work so I altered the recipe to replace half the white flour with wholegrain flour. My intention was not to make these pastries out to be healthy but rather to highlight that almost anything can be wholegrainised!
They even passed the taste test of someone accustomed to locally-made shekerbura which was highly rewarding. I myself reckoned that they tasted quite nice, but I’m Irish; refined pastries aren’t part of our culinary culture! It’s a beautiful feeling, to take some ingredients and follow a recipe (almost) word-for-word and achieve a result that has its roots in a very different part of the world. This was truly more than the sum of its parts! I am fascinated by the idea that I can go to a Belgian supermarket and find all the ingredients I need to make something that to me tastes somewhat other-worldly. It’s the particular combination of ingredients and the baking method that transform some relatively banal ingredients into something special that ordinarily you would have to travel far away to taste! It’s the same with cooking, and part of the reason I love cooking and baking from scratch so much. Yes it takes time, and it takes love, but it’s worth it when you taste and share the finished product! It’s not something you can buy.
Two distinct ingredients were cardamom and sour cream (the latter of which is included in the pastry). The flavour is not just nutty, but fragrant too. The filling is dry, but intended to be eaten with tea. Not just any tea, strong black spicy tea with a slice of lemon. There’s a strong tea culture in the region and you can easily replicate it at home by adding a few cloves, cardamom pods and dried roses to some loose leaf black tea.
Before they went in the oven
So for any brave souls who are up for the challenge, here is the recipe! The original recipe I followed is here, and it’s extremely useful as there are step-by-step photos to follow.
Wholegrain Shekerbura
Print RecipeIngredients
- For the Dough:
- 1 kg wheat flour (can replace about 1/3 with whole grain flour if desired) + 1 tbsp (for step 3)
- 400 g unsalted butter, cut into large chunks
- 5 egg yolks
- 250 g sour cream
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla powder (optional)
- 1/2 tsp dry yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) lukewarm milk (I used plant milk)
- For the Filling:
- 700 g skinned hazelnuts (I skinned them myself, see note below recipe, but you can also buy them skinned)
- 700 g granulated sugar
- 2 tsp (or to taste) ground cardamom
Instructions
Prepare the dough. Put the flour and the butter in a large mixing bowl. Using your hands, rub them together until you obtain fine crumbs. Make sure there are no large crumbs left.
In a small bowl, using a spoon, mix the eggs yolks, sour cream, salt and vanilla powder.
In another small bowl, put the yeast, 1 tbsp flour, 1 tbsp sugar. Add 1/4 cup of lukewarm milk. Let stand for about 2 minutes.
Add the egg-sour cream mixture (#2), the yeast mixture (#3), to the flour-butter mixture (#1).
Using your hands, mix the ingredients until fully incorporated and a rough and inconsistent dough is obtained. Transfer the dough to your work surface. Put the remaining 1/4 cup of lukewarm milk in a separate bowl. Constantly wetting your hands with milk, knead the dough for a few minutes to make it smooth.
Shape the dough into a ball. Put it back in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave aside to rest for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, prepare the filling. Grind the hazelnuts finely in a food processor. In a mixing bowl, combine the ground nuts with sugar. Add the ground cardamom and vanilla powder. Mix until fully incorporated.
Divide the dough into 36 balls, each weighing 50 g.
Work with one ball at a time, and cover the rest. Roll each ball into a 4 inch (10 cm) circle.
Place the circle in the palm of your hand, slightly folded, and put 2 tablespoons of the filling in the center.
Starting at one end, begin sealing the left and right edges towards the center to obtain a half-moon shape. Sealed shekerbura must be somewhat chubby from the filling and never flat.
Using your thumb and index finger, start pinching and twisting the dough along the seal to decorate the edges.
Arrange the pastry on a baking sheet, lined with parchment (baking) paper. Continue working with the rest of the dough balls, arranging them on the baking sheet as you are finished decorating their edges.
Bake on the middle rack of the oven preheated to 175ºC for 15-20 minutes, or until the edges just begin to change their color and the bottom is light brown. Take care not to over bake the pastries – their tops should be a light color when baked. Coat them with powdered sugar once they cool off.
Notes
To skin hazelnuts and walnuts at home: Place raw hazelnuts in a large frying pan, and roast over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the skins crack and begin to flake off, about 10 minutes. Take care not to burn the nuts. Working with small batches of nuts at a time, place them them on a kitchen cloth and rub with it to remove the skins. Most of the skins will come off although some will still cling to the nut (especially on walnuts). Do not worry, a little skin will not be that visible in the filling. Source: https://azcookbook.com/2009/03/12/shekerbura/
This is how the dough should look before separating into balls
