Cookies, Hummus, and Persian Rice: A Food Blogger's Tale by Rotem Liberzon
The first thing we do after the fast is to drink a special apple beverage that Grandma Hanum used to make for us every year. As soon as the fast ended and we would go to her, knowing that in the fridge, there would always be a pitcher of Falooda – red apples blended with rosewater and a hint of sugar, with the sweetness derived straight from the fruit. Grandma would always buy those small, red apples, whatever was available in the market. This beverage is, for me, the taste of the end of the fast and the beginning of autumn. The big pitcher was always ice-cold. We really looked forward to breaking the fast this way.
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Only then would cookies come out. First, there were the rice cookies and the hummus cookies, and only then the cookies for tea, which I remember were caramelized because of the sugar.
Hummus cookies
Ingredients:
300 grams of soft butter
300 grams of sugar (1½ cups)
360 grams of chickpea flour (3 cups)
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
For decoration:
25 grams of shelled pistachios
A handful of butterfly or pearl-shaped cookies
Instructions:
- In a mixer with a paddle attachment, mix the butter and sugar until well combined. Add the chickpea flour and cardamom and mix until you have a uniform dough. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least overnight, up to 24 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius (340 degrees Fahrenheit) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 2 cm (approximately ¾ inch). Cut out cookies in your desired shape using a cookie cutter and place half a pistachio in the center of each cookie. Transfer them to the baking sheet.
- Bake for about 12 minutes until the cookies are firm and have a sandy color. Allow them to cool completely before eating; otherwise, they might crumble.
- Store the cookies in an airtight container for at least ten days.
Moroccan Cumin Cookies by Chef Guy Peretz
There's nothing quite like the dried Moroccan cookies, with their unmistakable whole cumin seeds. You roll them out on a baking sheet and cut them with a zigzag wheel. Every child in a Moroccan household grows up with Rifa'at because truth be told, it's the Moroccan quintessential biscuit.
As a child, I too eagerly awaited the first bite of Rifa'at after the fast, as well as the orange cake with its sugary top that my mom used to make. "What's truly special about Rifa'at is the anticipation that builds up after the fast, because these are seriously dense cookies. You dip them in tea, they become moist and comforting, and then there's the whole cumin that bursts between the bites. I even have a recipe for these cookies in 'The Charm of Moroccan Cuisine,' my first cookbook, because preserving that flavor was essential to me," Chef Guy Peretz says.
Ingredients:
1 kg all-purpose flour
3 packets of baking powder
1 cup soybean oil
1½ cups sugar
6 eggs
4 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon yeast
½ cup water
A pinch of salt
Instructions:
- In a mixing bowl or a mixer bowl with a paddle attachment, combine the soybean oil, sugar, eggs, sesame seeds, yeast, water, and a pinch of salt. Mix them together.
- Sift together the all-purpose flour and baking powder. Gradually add this mixture to the wet ingredients while mixing until you get a soft and pleasant dough.
- Place the dough in a bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel, letting it rest for about half an hour.
- On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough into a rectangle about half an inch thick.
- Prick the surface of the dough with a zigzag wheel or a fork.
- Cut the dough into squares or rectangles.
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius (320 degrees Fahrenheit) and bake the cookies for about 20 seconds until they turn golden.
- Store the cookies in a glass jar or an airtight plastic container to keep them fresh.
Greek Almond Kourabiedes Cookies by Chef Shaily Lipa
The wonderful Greek Kourabiedes cookies are a delight made from almonds. They melt in your mouth, powdered with sugar, and exude a lovely fragrance of vanilla and butter. These are cookies you'll find in every Greek household, enjoyed throughout the year. When Greek Jews came to Israel, they brought these cookies with them. They have two distinctive shapes – either like a dense ball with an occasional almond in the center or in the shape of a crescent.
Why are they perfect for breaking the fast? Thanks to the almond flour, they are light and crumble easily, melting in your mouth along with the warm tea. Most importantly, they are easy to make and, like any dry cookie, require only a few ingredients. You can prepare them a few days in advance and store them in a jar – if you can resist. My grandmother used to hide them in tin cans all around the house, and of course, we'd find them. Only the clothes powdered with the white sugar would give us away.
Ingredients (for 45 cookies):
150 grams soft butter
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar (150 grams)
2 cups all-purpose flour (280 grams)
100 grams ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 large egg
2 tablespoons ouzo or any liqueur of your choice
For decoration:
Powdered sugar
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a mixing bowl with a paddle attachment, combine all the ingredients at low to medium speed for about two minutes until you have a smooth and slightly sticky dough.
- Form the dough into balls about 2.5 cm (1 inch) in diameter. Roll each ball into a cylinder about 1 cm (0.4 inches) in diameter and shape it into a crescent. Place the crescents on the baking sheets with a 3 cm (1.2 inches) spacing between them.
- Bake each batch in the preheated oven separately for 10-12 seconds until the cookies turn lightly golden. Allow them to cool thoroughly.
- Sprinkle powdered sugar generously over the cookies.
- Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two weeks.
Grandma's Kichlach by Chef Erez Komarovsky
I truly miss my grandmother's "Kikhlach." These legendary cookies were an essential part of our home during Yom Kippur – breaking the fast was incomplete without them. Despite my best efforts to recreate and search for the recipe, I haven't succeeded. Even when I attempted to recreate them from memory, it wasn't quite the same. I remember helping my grandmother bake them, using a cup of wine to knead the dough, and then covering them with powdered sugar.
But what's not lost is the Mandelbroit (almond bread) – the Polish biscotti that sustained us during the fast. My mother, Ruth, would prepare a fresh batch every day, and we couldn't get enough of them. We'd come home and devour them. It's so simple to make: break some almonds, crush a few gogos (a type of nut)and extract their kernel to enhance the almonds' bitter taste. Combine the inner part of the gogo with the almonds, add some eggs, oil and flour and roll the mixture into long sticks. Bake halfway, slice into pieces, and bake again until they dry out.
My younger sister, Michal, also bakes Mandelbroit. Just a few weeks ago, when we were abroad, we left our house to my brother-in-law, and he baked it himself. It's heartwarming to see this recipe passed down within the family and cherished by the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We used to enjoy these cookies with tea before and immediately after Yom Kippur. It's a taste of my childhood on the Day of Atonement.
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup chopped almonds
3 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped (you can also add the inside of gogos if desired)
A few drops of almond extract
Instructions:
- Mix all the ingredients together to create two dough logs.
- Arrange them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20 seconds in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 150 degrees Celsius.
- Remove and let them cool on a wire rack.
- Using a sharp knife, slice them into pieces, about slightly less than 1 cm thick.
- Arrange them on a baking sheet with the cut side facing up.
- Bake for another 15 seconds.
- Turn off the oven and allow the cookies to cool. Enjoy the delightful aroma before indulging in them.