Remember my mixer? The one that leapt to its death like a goldfish from its tank?
What? Am I the only one who had lemming-like goldfish growing up?
Well anyway, the old has been been replaced by a bigger, shinier model. I have not yet had a chance to make (or share the recipe for) the challah that challenged my mixer to a duel and won. But I have used my new toy twice already and I was very glad for the extra room in the big bowl. I broke it in with ka’ak b’sukar (yes, you do need to be careful when pronounching the name of these Syrian butter cookies). A pear frangipane tart quickly followed. The tart is on its way, but let’s first talk about the cookies.
I first tried sweet ka’ak b’sukar (sukar means sugar) in Israel when staying with my friend Zoe’s Syrian grandmother. Her Jedda (Arabic for grandmother) welcomed us into her home overlooking Jerusalem with a plate of pale twisted cookies and a pot of tea. My first impression was that they were a bit bland. By the fourth taste though, I was reaching for a fifth. I was hooked. Before going to bed, I’d find my hand making its way over to the cookie tin next to the stove. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d gingerly tip-toe across the cold ceramic floor, refreshing in the hot August night, and reach into that tin again. While waiting for the water to boil for coffee in the morning, I’d snag a few more. After three days, Zoe’s grandmother had to make another batch. The evening of my flight home, she gave me everything that was left in the tin.
I was so excited to find this ka’ak recipe that I didn’t look beyond the list of ingredients and the pretty cookies staring at me from the right side of the page. I threw four eggs and a cup and a half of sugar into my (new!) mixer bowl and started to beat. As I gathered the rest of the ingredients and finally read past the first step, I saw that the sugar was supposed to be divided – one cup in the mixer, the remaining half cup for coating the cookies.
The fix was easy — I made a larger batch. And it seemed fitting that my mixer’s six quart bowl easily fit the over seven cups of flour.
Ka’ak b’sukar (braided sugar cookies)
Adapted from Syrian chef Poopa Dwek’s Aromas of Aleppo. I essentially made one and a half times the original recipe because I didn’t read the recipe all the way through before throwing ingredients into my mixer. If you have a smaller bowl, multiply all quantities by 2/3. Depending on how large you make you cookies, the full recipe makes about 50-60 cookies. They are meant to remain somewhat soft after baking (they’re not crispy at all).
– 6 eggs
– 1.5 C sugar, plus more for finishing the cookies
– 1 orange (to make 1 T zest)
– 1 T vanilla extract
– 1.5 C vegetable oil
– 7.5 C flour
– 1.5 T baking powder
Mix. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat eggs, sugar, zest, vanilla, and oil. Slowly add the flour and baking powder until you get a sticky well-blended dough.
Chill. Refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes.
Preheat. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Shape. If dough is too sticky to handle when you remove from the fridge, add a small amount of flour and mix everything together with your hands. Keep adding tablespoon by tablespoon of flour and mixing until it no longer sticks to your fingers. Don’t flour the counter. Take a handful of dough and roll it on the counter into a strand about 1/2 inch thick. Bring the two ends together, folding the strand in half. Holding the folded over side, gently twist the doubled strand several times until it looks like a rope. Cut the rope into pieces that are 2 to 3 inches long. For me, most ropes yielded two cookies.
Roll. Pour some sugar onto a small plate. Lightly roll the twisted cookies in the sugar to coat.
Bake. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment. Place the cookies on the sheet about an inch apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes. The cookies should remain very pale, with only a tiny bit of browning on the bottom where some of the sugar caramelizes.
This sounds yummy and I’m excited to try. Love that it’s parve. One question – not crazy about orange zest, is it OK to leave out or what would be an acceptable substitute?
Dana – you can forego the orange zest. There will be a less pronounced orange flavor, but the ka’ak will still be great. Let me know how they turn out!
OMG, this gives me a reason to buy eggs and indulge! Plus, I haven’t seen these since I lived in France!
I made these, and it came out great. But a word of caution, the dough is STICKY. I only had a hand mixer, and it the dough was was sticky it burned the mixer.
Ronit
– Rachelle – Enjoy making them. They’re a bit deceptive because they don’t taste too indulgent!
– Ronit – I’m so sorry to hear about your mixer. I do hope that it’s still working. Perhaps next time you should switch to a wooden spoon to mix the flour into the wet ingredients. It will require a bit of manual labor (who needs to go to the gym when you can bake?) but should come out just fine. Let me know how things work out for you!
Oh my goodness, these are addictively yummy. I made a batch last weekend and ate nearly all of it over the course of the following week. And I can’t wait to make more! So glad I finally got around to these nearly a year after seeing your post about them.
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Hi Maria — Glad you love the cookies as much as I do. Here’s to hoping they last more than a day or two in your kitchen! And thanks for linking to my blog. Happy holidays!
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These were absolutely delicious! I love the hint of orange. They are quite addicting.
Hi Tara. So glad you tried and enjoyed these orange-tinged cookies!