Date Cookies

The recipe of this cookie belongs to one of my friend's grandmother. She used to make this cookie during New year. Date cookies which is called 'Ma'amoul' in Muslim countries, are consumed during religious festivals. There are different versions in each country. Thanks to Nazli for this recipe.

Note: You will have 40-50 cookies, depending on size with these ingredients.

Ingredients

For the dough

• 8 cups of flour
• 3 cups of butter
• 1/2 cups of canola/vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon of dry yeast
• 1 cups of sugar
• 1 cup of powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 cups of water

For the fill

Date fill

• 1/2 table spoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mahlab
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground anise
• 1/4 teaspoon fennel seed
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 cup chopped dates
• 2 tablespoon canola/vegetable oil

Walnut fill

• 1/2 tablespoon honey
• 1/2 cup crushed walnuts
• 1 desert spoon cinnamon

For decoration

• 1 tablespoon powdered sugar

Preparation

To prepare the dough first take a sauce pan and put sugar, powdered sugar and water in it and boil them together. You should wait couple of minutes after it boils and then take it from the heat. Then, take another sauce pan and put butter in it and melt all the butter.

Then take a large bowl and add flour and yeast in it. Add oil into the melted butter and slowly add it to the flour while kneading it. The butter should be neither too cold not too hot, it should be warm to help the yeast work.

After you are done with butter and oil, add syrup slowly and go on kneading. The same thing for syrup, it should be neither cold nor hot.

Knead the dough until it looks like this.

Then put it into freezer about ten minutes.
In the meantime to prepare the fills, put all spices into a small bowl and mix them together.

We will have two types of fill, one with dates and the other is with walnuts. For the fill with dates put chopped dates and 1 1/2 teaspoon spice mix.

For the fill with walnuts, put crushed walnuts, honey and cinnamon in a small bowl and mix them.

Take the dough from freezer. Make small and medium balls from it.Then take medium ball and make a bowl shape out of it. Put some fill into it. Take small ball and cover the fill with that.

After you give the cookie its shape with your hand, put some holes on it with a fork. Actually we did this to differentiate two types of cookies. You do not need to do that.

Bake it about 25 minutes in preheated oven to 375 F. To understand if it is baked, look at the bottom, if it is darker and cookies are not too soft it is baked.

After you take them from the oven, wait until it gets cold and decorate with powdered sugar.