Chebakia

Dough cut and threaded into a rose, fried, and dropped straight from the oil into warm honey where it hisses.

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

Ingredients

For the dough

• 500 g plain flour
• 150 g sesame seeds, toasted and ground
• 60 g butter, melted
• 60 ml olive oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons ground anise
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• a pinch of saffron
• 1 teaspoon yeast
• 2 tablespoons orange blossom water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• about 120 ml warm water

To fry and finish

• 1 litre flavourless oil, for frying
• 600 g honey
• 2 tablespoons orange blossom water
• 150 g sesame seeds, toasted, to coat

Method

1. STRAIGHT FROM THE OIL INTO WARM HONEY, and it should hiss when it goes in. Hot pastry drinks honey; cooled pastry is merely coated in it, and the inside stays dry. The honey is kept warm in a pan beside the fryer and the pieces go from one to the other with nothing in between.
2. THE HONEY MUST BE WARM BUT NOT HOT. Around 60C. Boiling honey seizes the pastry and goes bitter; cold honey will not penetrate.
3. THE SHAPE IS FOUR CUTS AND ONE THREAD. A square of rolled dough, four parallel slits cut in it leaving both ends joined, then a finger pushed through alternate strips and the whole thing pulled through and pinched -- it opens into a rose in the oil. It takes several attempts to get right and the early ones are perfectly edible.
4. Saffron crumbled into the orange blossom water.
5. Sesame seeds toasted and ground to a coarse paste.
6. Flour, ground sesame, anise, cinnamon, salt and yeast mixed. Butter, oil, eggs and the saffron water worked in, then enough warm water to make a firm dough.
7. Kneaded 10 minutes to something smooth and stiff. Rested 1 hour, covered.
8. Rolled out thin, about 3 mm, and cut into rectangles 8 cm by 6 cm.
9. FOUR PARALLEL SLITS cut lengthways in each, stopping short of both ends.
10. A finger pushed through the first, third and fifth gaps, the far end gathered and pulled back through, and the two ends pinched firmly together.
11. Oil to 165C -- lower than most frying, because these need to cook through without the outside darkening.
12. Fried 4 to 5 minutes, turned, until deep gold.
13. Lifted out with a slotted spoon and dropped STRAIGHT into the warm honey. Left 3 to 5 minutes, turning once.
14. Lifted out, drained on a rack, and sprinkled heavily with toasted sesame while still wet. They keep a month in a tin and go stickier rather than stale.

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 Morocco · All recipes