Koloocheh

It is stamped with a pattern on top, and filled with dates and walnuts.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter), dairy (milk).

Ingredients

for the dough

• 500 g plain flour
• 150 g butter, softened
• 100 g sugar
• 1 egg
• 120 ml milk
• 7 g fast-action yeast
• 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 2 tablespoons rose water

for the filling

• 300 g dates, stoned and chopped
• 100 g walnuts, chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 40 g butter

to finish

• 1 egg yolk, beaten, to glaze

Method

1. IT IS STAMPED WITH A PATTERN ON TOP, AND FILLED WITH DATES AND WALNUTS. Its article calls it a stamped cookie or bread and says that typically these are filled with dates and walnuts. The stamp is what the thing looks like and the reason to make it: a wooden mould, or a patterned press, or in its absence the point of a skewer and a fork used deliberately rather than casually. Press firmly enough to mark the dough without cutting through to the filling, which with a soft dough around a soft filling is a real constraint and is why the assembled cookies are chilled before stamping.
2. IT IS CHILLED BEFORE IT IS STAMPED. Twenty minutes in the fridge once filled and sealed. Stamped warm, the dough tears and the filling comes through.
3. THE DOUGH IS YEASTED AND THAT IS WHY IT CAN GO EITHER WAY. Its article notes the variations run from bready to crispy and from stuffed to unstuffed. With yeast and a full rise you get the bready kind; rolled thinner and baked hotter, the same dough gives the crisp kind.
4. THE FILLING IS COOKED TO A PASTE FIRST AND COOLED. Chopped dates with the butter and spices over a low heat for five minutes until they slump into a thick paste, then the walnuts stirred in, then cooled completely. Warm filling melts the butter in the dough.
5. THE OTHER FILLINGS ARE ITS ARTICLE'S, NOT INVENTED. It allows grated coconut, and spicing with saffron, rose water, cardamom, cinnamon or citrus zest.
6. THEY ARE SEALED PROPERLY OR THEY LEAK. Dough rolled to five millimetres, a spoon of filling, the edges brought up and pinched, then turned seam-side down and flattened gently to a disc.
7. EGG WASH, THEN BAKE AT 180C FOR TWENTY MINUTES. Until golden -- unlike the two pale cookies on this site, this one is a wheat dough and is meant to colour.
8. A VEGAN VERSION IS SANCTIONED AND SO IS A BRITTLE ONE. Its article notes the Caspian bready style can be made vegan by using coconut oil instead of butter, and that the version from the south of the country is a brittle biscuit of water, sugar, wheat flour and egg white. It is made for the new year, and also at Purim, Easter and Ramadan.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Iran · All recipes