Palestinian Malateet – Anise Cookie

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A tasty vegan aromatic cookie that even a no-experience cook will enjoy making. Easy dough to make. No dough fermentation time. No hard work for shaping it. My mum, may her soul rest in peace, used to make plain anise cookies during lent season mainly; however I make it just anytime as it is so simple. Trying to balance between my sweet tooth and being healthy. I usually replace the granulated sugar with Truvia or any other to your preference. Of course taking into consideration the needed quantity for the recipe. For example, 1 cup sugar = ½ cup Truvia Baking Blend. It’s not that I am encouraging you to use Truvia rather than another other sweetner. I just liked the fact that when used in baking, Truvia doesn’t leave any after taste.

One last tip, you can take this cookie to another level and fill the finger cookies with dates paste and you can have a cookie close in taste and ingredient to “maqroota”. I made a little this time and the taste is amazingly yummy with no guilt attached!

Ingredients:

All purpose flour 5 cups

Granulated Sugar 2 cups or 1 cup of Truvia

Olive Oil 1 ½ cup

Water cup or a bit more

Roasted Sesame 1 cup

Baking Powder 3 teaspoons

Ground Anise 1 tablespoon

Anise Seeds 1 tablespoon

Ground Mahlab* 1 tablespoon

Ground Nutmeg ½ teaspoon

Instructions:

  1. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl;
  2. Add water according to need and mix by hand, adding as much water as needed until the dough comes together;
  3. Make apricot size balls of dough, roll them in your hands into a rough finger long size;
  4. Push the dough onto the largest side of a grater, push it gently with 3 finger and sliding down until it curls and gets textured;
  5. Preheat oven to 400ºF, bake for around 15 minutes, or until they’re golden, bottom and top;

You can freeze them in Ziplock Bags and thaw them for a couple of hours then warm them in the oven or microwave for consumption.

*Mahleb or Mahlepi is an aromatic spice made from the seeds of a species of cherry, Prunus mahaleb (the Mahaleb or St Lucie cherry). (source: wikipedia)

 

Hope you enjoy it!

Alf Saha w Hana ألف صحة وهنا

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