Photo by Liz and Max Haarala Hamilton
No matter how many times I say to myself “Not another baking book!”, I somehow find myself once again lying on the sofa greedily reading, earmarking recipes with abandon, and planning so many delicious collaborations between me and my oven.
And with Salma Hage’s Middle Eastern Sweets, believe me, this is all too easily done. It isn’t, as the title and sheer heft of the book might lead you to think, a comprehensive guide to the traditional desserts of the region, but an engagingly personal mixture, drawing on the Middle East, stretching to its outer peripheries and beyond, rethinking some desserts from other cultures, and in so doing, drawing on the spices and flavours that the author, who comes from Lebanon but moved to London in her twenties, grew up with. It has both a classical elegance and a bright modern sensibility.
I promise I won’t list every recipe that reeled me in, but please indulge me as I name more than a few. It started with the first recipe in the book, Barazek, or Syrian Sesame and Pistachio Biscuits (Cookies if you’re in the US). Then, I have to mention the Salted Tahini and Chocolate Cookies; the Persian Chick Pea Shortbread (made with gram flour) which intrigued me; the Fig Jam Thumbprint Cookies; the Baghir, or Moroccan 1,000-hole Pancakes; M’hanncha, or Moroccan Snake Cake, filo pastry stuffed with nuts, sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, and orange blossom water (among other delicious things), rolled into a sausage, and curled around itself before being baked and brushed with rosewater, cinnamon and honey syrup; Sesame Crunch Shards (like homemade glorified Sesame Snaps); Booza, or Stretchy Ice Cream (and I can’t get the sahlab powder for it fast enough!); Pistachio & Orange Blossom Madeleines; Basbousa, or Semolina & Almond Drizzle Cake; Baked Labneh Cheesecake; Coconut & Orange Blossom Cakes; Roasted Orange Marmalade; Baked Lemon & Bay Figs; Spiced Pistachio Brioche; and Awamat, or Lebanese Drop Donuts. And I should let you know, too, that there are a number of vegan options included and, more, celebrated.
Choosing a recipe to share with you was both ludicrously easy and yet so very hard. But in the end, it just had to be the Kunafa, a celestial whisper of a cheesecake, and an enormous favourite of mine, and which — so long as you can find the kataifi shredded-wheat pastry — is made invitingly easy.
Middle Eastern Sweets by Salma Hage is published by Phaidon, £24.95 (phaidon.com).
Photography: Liz and Max Haarala Hamilton.
