Barazek

Sesame on one face and pistachios on the other, put on by pressing each side into its own tray before baking.

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

Ingredients

the dough

• 350 g plain flour
• 150 g butter, softened
• 100 g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt

the two coatings

• 150 g sesame seeds
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons water
• 100 g pistachios, coarsely chopped

Method

1. SESAME ON ONE FACE AND PISTACHIOS ON THE OTHER, put on by pressing each side into its own tray before baking. Two shallow trays are set out: one of chopped pistachios, one of sesame seeds mixed with honey and water into a sticky mass. Each disc of dough is pressed first pistachio-side down, then turned over and pressed sesame-side down, and goes onto the baking tray pistachio side DOWN -- so the sesame crust faces up and bakes to a lacquered gold while the pistachios underneath stay green and soft. One biscuit, two completely different faces, and that is the whole character of it. Scattering both over the top gives a muddle in which the pistachios scorch.
2. THE HONEY IN THE SESAME TRAY IS WHAT MAKES THE CRUST. Three tablespoons with two of water, worked through the seeds until they clump. The honey is what the seeds stick to and what caramelises them into a single sheet rather than a scatter of individual seeds that fall off. Dry sesame gives a biscuit that sheds.
3. THE PISTACHIOS GO ON THE UNDERSIDE AND THAT IS DELIBERATE. Facing down they are shielded from the oven's radiant heat and stay bright green; on top they go brown and bitter in fifteen minutes. The biscuit is served either way up, but it is baked pistachio-down.
4. THE DOUGH IS PRESSED THIN AND THE BISCUITS ARE WIDE. Three or four millimetres, about six centimetres across. Thick ones are cakey and the two crusts stop mattering; thin and wide, the biscuit is almost all crust.
5. THE DOUGH IS CHILLED BEFORE SHAPING. Thirty minutes. A soft butter dough will not take the pressing into the trays -- it stretches and the coatings embed unevenly.
6. THEY ARE BAKED UNTIL THE SESAME IS GOLDEN AND THEN COOLED COMPLETELY. 180°C, twelve to fourteen minutes. They are soft out of the oven and snap once cold, so firmness in the oven is the wrong test -- the colour of the sesame is the right one.
7. The butter and sugar creamed, then the egg and milk beaten in.
8. The flour, baking powder and salt FOLDED in to a soft dough. Chilled 30 MINUTES.
9. TWO shallow trays set out: the chopped pistachios in one; the sesame seeds worked with the HONEY and water until clumping in the other.
10. The dough rolled into balls and each FLATTENED to 3 or 4 mm and about 6 cm across.
11. Each disc pressed FIRST pistachio-side down, then turned and pressed sesame-side down.
12. Set on lined trays PISTACHIO SIDE DOWN, sesame facing UP.
13. Baked at 180°C for 12 to 14 MINUTES, until the SESAME is golden.
14. COOLED COMPLETELY on the trays.
15. TESTED cold: the sesame face should be a lacquered sheet and the pistachios still green. Brown pistachios mean it was baked the wrong way up.
16. Keeps 2 weeks in a tin.

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 Lebanon · All recipes