Ghorabieh is a soft chewy almond macaroon popular in Iran. This version doesn’t use flour, and is Gluten Free. The rose water and cardamom adds a lovely middle eastern flavour to this cookie.
I usually make this recipe when I have left over egg whites from making Tachin or fresh Barbari bread.
Traditionally these cookies are soft and chewy, with a slight crunch on the outside. If you wish a crunchier cookie, then when the color starts to turn, drop the temperature and to 140 deg and leave to cook for a further 10 – 20 minutes.
Sour cherry and oat cookies is the first of my experimenting with the sour cherries, to add a Persian twist to some of our regular Western recipes.
This is a variation of “Crinkle Top Raisin Oatmeal Cookies” I replaced the raisins with sour cherries (albaloo) and the result was quite amazing. The sour cherry added a tang to the biscuit making it quite delicious.
Things to Note when making Sour Cherry and Oat Cookies:
Process the dried sour cherry with flour for even distribution
When using the food processor to process the sour cherry with the flour, keep going until a ball is formed. This can take a while, and you will think that it isn’t going to happen, but it will. The sour cherry will form a thick paste similar to the photo below. This is important to be sure that the sour cherry is disbursed throughout the cookie.
Cream Butter and Sugar well
Be sure to cream the butter and sugar until all the sugar granules are dissolved. You could use caster sugar, but I find it easier to have just one type of white sugar in my cupboard.
After the egg is added, be sure to mix well until the mixture increases in volume and has the consistency of light frosting. These 2 steps are very important as it results in a lighter, less dense cookie. The mixing adds small air pockets into the dough, swelling with steam as the dough is cooked in the oven. The lighter dough also means that the sugar and butter will melt more slowly, decreasing the spread of the cookie. When the mixture is of the right consistency add the sour cherry mixture and keep mixing on a high setting until well combined.
Combine all the dry ingredients together
Combine all the dry ingredients together and mix well. This is important to ensure that the flour, oats, baking soda (bi-carbonate of soda), salt and cinnamon are evenly distributed through out the cookie. Because as we combine the ingredients we need to gently stir them together.
At this point we then need to start becoming more gentle with the mixture. I do this with the paddle attachment on my orbital stand mixture on the lowest speed. Stop as soon as everything is completely combined as we don’t want to remove those air-bubbles we so lovingly added earlier.
Roll into golf ball sized rounds and place on lined cookie trays ready to bake. The recipe makes 60 sour cherry and oat cookies, and I use 3 cookie trays with 20 on each. If this is too many cookies then you can pop one or 2 of the trays into the freezer and when the dough is frozen pack into zip lock freezer bags for storage.
I always like to leave the trays of uncooked cookies to rest on the shelf while I preheat the oven.
Sour Cherry and Oat Cookies
This is a Persian version of a family favourite. Crinkle Top Oatmeal and Raisin cookies.
These saffron butter cookies are a firm favourite in our household. It is a traditional butter cookie recipe I learnt at Home Economics at High School, with the addition of powdered saffron and crushed pistachio nuts giving it a Persian twist.
The trick with this recipe is to make sure that the butter and sugar is well creamed and light an fluffy. An orbital mixer makes this easy to achieve.
The more crushed pistachio nuts on the top the better. These light Saffron Butter cookies are great with Persian Tea.
Saffron Butter Cookies
These saffron butter cookies are a firm favourite in our household. It is a traditional butter cookie recipe I learnt at Home economics at High School, with the addition of powdered saffron and crushed pistachio nuts. A delicious light butter cookie. Great to have with some Persian Tea.
