Shalom and Salaam with Mamoul [Date filled cookies]

Mamoul is a middle eastern cookie served for special holidays. I like these cookies as it does not use whole lot of sugar as you would expect in a cookie. The sweetness is provided by dates, which makes it more healthy. My recipe is inspired from here, I have made few changes to suit my taste....

[This is my entry for CLICK event ]

Ingredients:

All purpose flour [maida] - 1/2 cup
Semolina - 1 cup
Baking powder - 1/4 tsp
Rose water - 1.5 tbsp
Butter [unsalted]- 2.5 tbsp
Salt - pinch
Whole milk - 1/2 cup
Pitted dates - 15
Broken pistachios


Method For Dough:

Sieve together all purpose flour, semolina, salt and baking powder. Rub in the butter with hands and keep it aside

Next add rose water to the milk and use it to form dough of the above mix and let it sit at room temperature for at least 1 hour [the dough may not be firm at this stage. Don't worry, the semolina will absorb the excess fluid in course of time it will improve the consistency ]

Method For Filling:

Chop the pitted dates and saute' on medium heat with little butter [you can skip this step, it tastes equally good]

Grind the dates in a food processor or beat it with the back of the laddle to break further the cooked dates

Divide the mixture equally based on the number of cookies you want to make

Method For Making Cookies:

Make equal sized balls from the dough [approx 12 in number]. Take each ball , flatten it out lightly and fill it with date mixture. Seal the the ball by pinching the open ends with fingers

Roll the date filled balls over broken pistachios and keep it on a cookie tray

Bake it in the middle rack of the oven at 350 Fahrenheit for 20 minutes or till they get light golden in color

Cool the cookies before you indulge on them!!

My entries:

This is also my entry for SHF- Fruit and Nut event

I would like to thank Madhuram of Eggless cooking for letting me enter this recipe for Low fat eggless baking event

Check my other Date recipes: Date Rolls and Date Muffins