Ghraybey_Middle Eastern Butter Cookies

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butter cookies, cookies, Dessert, ghraybeh, ghreybeh, middle eastern, shortbread, بسكويت الزبده, غريبه

Delicate, buttery shortbread cookies, a special occasion treats in many middle eastern countries.

Ghraybeh [ghray-beh] or ghreybey is a soft middle eastern butter cookie garnished with pistachios, and it is also referred to sometimes as a sugar cookie or wedding cakes. It is so soft and delicious, due to its abundance in butter ghee and powder sugar, has a distinctive smooth taste that melts in your mouth in seconds.

It is popular in many Middle Eastern countries, especially in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, and the Gulf region. It is also popular in Turkey, Morocco and Greece.

To make Ghraybeh, the dough is first prepared by creaming butter ghee (sometimes use half butter half margarine) with powder sugar, mix in flour and a hint of rosewater or orange blossom water, but you can add vanilla if you like. Small pieces of dough are then cut and rolled by hand to form circular shapes. Whole pistachio pieces are added for garnish, and the dough is baked on medium temperature for 10 minutes. They must remain pale, almost white, to keep their delicious taste and tender.

The cookies come in many shapes – rounds, crescents, diamonds, or S shapes.
It is a cookie best served with coffee or tea.

Ghraybey_Middle Eastern Butter Cookies

1/2 cup sugar confectioner
1/2 cup butter
about 1 1/4 cup sifted cake flour, you may need more
1\2 teaspoon rosewater or orange blossom water(optional)
almonds, pistachios, or pine nuts

Cream the butter and beat in the sugar for about 3-4 min. Until it is smooth cream, add the rosewater.
Gradually, mix in the flour, with hands, mix well until combined, the dough should be soft and pliable when shaped into a ball. If required add 1 -2 tablespoon of flour.
Cover the dough and let rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour. heat the oven to 300 f.

Take a small amount of the dough, the size of walnut, roll in your hands and shape into a ball, then flatten slightly with your balm, in the middle press a pistachio nut into the dough. Arrange them on a baking sheet a little apart from each other bake for 10 min.

Do not let them overcook, they must remain white. Let them cool completely before you try to move them.

Eton Mess and Any Time for Treats

Tags

berry sauce, Dessert, Easy dessert, egg white, Eton mess, fast dessert, Meringue, Meringue cookies, whipping cream

Now, let’s clear this. Sometimes it’s not necessary to spend time making an impressive dessert when your organs urgently shiver demanding a sugar shot.

even if you are looking forward to your guests with unstinting enthusiasm, you may suddenly think that a chapter devoted to making dessert after preparing a good night dinner is going to complicate your life.

But no, it’s precisely intended to make it easier.

The name eton mess does’nt mean mess as not good, it’s an accidental creation of a dessert. That has been told that the name came when Eton college player crushed a picnic basket filled with cream, meringue, and struaberry sauce, those ingredient came together in a complimentary messy dessert.

Eton Mess is a lightly sweet, old-fashioned British dessert made by blending whipped cream with freshly crushed berries and crisp meringue. It’s simple and convenient dessert that you can do the ingredient a time ahead, then assemble once you want to serve. And to make it more easy and fast preparing dessert you may use store-bought meringues instead of homemade.

The most challengeable step in making eton mess is making the meringue. The key to making meringue cookies is beating the egg whites. Here are some tips on the best way to achieve a good meringue cookies:

1. Start with egg whites at room temperature.

2. Be sure the bowl and beaters are spotlessly clean, especially from oil. Clean the bowl occasionally with lemon juice or white vinegar to prevent any film of oil from developing on the surface.

3. Do not use aluminum or plastic bowls.

4. Be sure the eggs are at the soft peak stage before adding sugar. And be sure the egg whites look white, not yellow. At the soft peak stage, egg whites are shiny and when you lift the beater, the whites lift up and then rather gracefully curve over slightly

5. Do not beat the eggs too quickly. This may be the most common mistake, and the one that causes meringues to deflate. When you whip whites at a high speed, both large and small air bubbles form and the large ones burst‚ which causes flattening.

6. Meringues crack when they cool too quickly. Leave them in the oven after baking (with the oven turned off) to slow the cooling process and help avoid the cracks

Meringue Cookies:

3 large egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 cup superfine or caster sugar (if you don’t have superfine sugar simply take granulated white sugar and process it for about 30 seconds in a food processor)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F (105 degrees C) and place the rack in the center of your oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat the whites until they hold soft peaks.

Add the sugar, a little at a time, and continue to beat until the meringue holds very stiff peaks. Beat in the vanilla extract. (Note: The meringue is done when it holds stiff peaks and when you rub a little between your thumb and index finger it does not feel gritty. If it feels gritty the sugar has not fully dissolved so keep beating until it feels smooth between your fingers.)

Before placing the cookies on the cookie sheet, place a little of the meringue on the underside of each corner of the parchment paper. This will prevent the paper from sliding. Then, using two spoons or decoration bag, place 10 equal sized mounds of meringue onto the prepared baking sheet.

Bake the meringues for approximately 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours, rotating the baking sheet from front to back (about half way through) to ensure even baking. The meringues are done when they are pale in color and fairly crisp. Turn off the oven, open the door a crack, and leave the meringues in the oven to finish drying overnight.

Meringue Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for several days.

Mascarponi Cream:

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon granulated white sugar
1/2 cup mascarponi cheese at room temperature

In a large mixing bowl place the whipping cream, mascarponi, vanilla extract, and sugar and stir to combine. Cover and chill the bowl and wire whisk in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. When chilled, beat the mixture until stiff peaks form. If not using right away, cover and place in the refrigerator. (The whipped cream can be made several hours in advance.)

berry Sauce:

1 cup fresh strawberries
1 cup mixwd berry fresh or frozen (raspberry, blueberry, blackberry)
4 tablespoons granulated white sugar, or to taste

Place about one third of the strawberries in your food processor and process until just pureed. Alternatively, you can crush them with a potato masher or fork. Add the frozen berry mix along with pureed strauberry in a pot at low heat. Sprinkle the granulated white sugar over the berries, stir to combine and cook for 15 minutes. Cut the rest of the strawberries into bite size pieces and add to the cooked berries.(can be made about one hour before assembling the Eton Mess).

To assemble the Eton Mess: Break meringue cookies into bite size pieces. Then fold the strawberries and meringue cookies into the whipped cream. Place in pretty dessert bowls or long stemmed glasses. Serve immediately.

Chocolate Chip Shortbread with Earl – Grey Infused Glaze

Tags

Baking, butter cookies, chocolate chip, cookies, cooking with tea, Dessert, Earl Grey, Earl Grey glaze, shortbread, tea glaze, tea time

There comes a time in every week ( or maybe in every day) when nothing is more satisfying than a snack of fresh-from-the-oven cookies, alongside a cold and creamy glass of milk or warming cup of tea.

When I’m talking shortbread cookies, I think of simplicity and little ingredients. This recipe of shortbread has no eggs in it, no baking powder, yet it calls for no cooling after mixing the dough. We don’t need to put everything from the pantry into a batch of cookies—a little restraint can go a long way toward helping us remember the pleasure of the simpler things.

But the absolute best part about shortbread? Butter! Shortbread cookies usually have a high percentage of fat and slightly less sugar than other cookies, leaving you with a not-too-sweet cookie that has a nice buttery flavor to it. The butter gives this classic cookie its just-so-slightly crumbly texture, which makes biting into a piece pure bliss. Butter also makes each bite melt a bit on your tongue as you munch on the cookies.

The glaze is new to me, the first time I used it or even see any recipe calling for it. Delicate Earl Grey tea infused glaze gives this unique flavor to the Cookies, calming and refreshing Earl Grey tea taste.

For optimum flavor, use unsalted butter to allow the flavors of butter, chocolate, orange and tea to stand out.

1 cup butter, unsalted
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp grated orange peel
2 cups all-purpose flour
1\4 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 f. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper or leave them ungreased.

Using an electric mixer on low-speed, cream the Butter, orange peel and Sugar together in a bowl until combined, Stop the mixer to scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Continuing on low-speed, gradually mix in the Flour, cornstarch and Salt. Scrape the bowl. When dough has formed, add in the chocolate chips, then complete the mixing by hand with a wooden spoon.

Roll dough into 1\4 inch thick rectangle on lightly floured board. Cut dough lengthwise into 4 rows and diagonally into 8 rows. Place shortbread 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until bottoms begin to brown. Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pan, cool completely on wire rack. Prepare Earl Grey-Infused Glaze. Drizzle over shortbread.

Earl Grey Infused Glaze:

makes 1\3 cup or enough to drizzle on the cookies

1\4 cup boiling water
3 bags Earl Grey tea
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon butter, softened

pour boiling water over the tea bags, let steep 3-5 minutes. Remove tea bags.
In a small bowl, stir together powdered sugar and butter. Gradually stir in enough tea to make glaze thin enough to drizzle.

Farina Pudding Pie (Layali Lubnan).

Tags

arabic, creamy desserts, Dessert, layali lubnan, middle eastern, pudding farina, semolina, semolina pudding

A traditional arabic dessert. Sweet, creamy, and delicious, known as Layali Lubnan (Lebanon Nights).
Nevertheless, it’s not only a delicious dessert, but it’s healthy too. My kids like to eat it as breakfast, haha, I guess we all do….
It’s a cold farina wheat pudding, or you can use the fine semolina, cooked with milk and cream, flavored with arabic most favourite flavors; mastic gum, rose water and blossom water. If you don’t like the flavors, you can add the vanilla.
Topped with whipping cream and any kind of chopped nuts, but the traditional with the pistachio. I added up some fruits on the top, you can use any kind you like, or may be you serve it without.
Drizzle the top with some sugar syrup. If you don’t like the sugar syrup you can substitute with the honey.
Friends and family gatherings most lovely dessert, you can also serve it in an individual small dishes, and top it with different topping as you prefer.
You can find most of the ingredients in the middle eastern stores, the Nestle table cream some times find it at Wal-Mart Supermarket in the hispanic section.

1\2 cup farina wheat or fine semolina
2 1\2 cups milk
1\2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1\4 teaspoon finely ground mastic gum
1 cup liquid cream or nestle table cream
1 tablespoon rose water
1 tablespoon blossom water

for the topping

whipping cream, whipped
pistachio nuts, coarsely chopped
fruits of any you like, I used strawberries and bananas
honey or blossom favored sugar syrup(recipe follow)

In a saucepan, on medium heat, place the farina, milk, sugar, mastic gum, and an egg. Beat together,and stir to boil.
Lower the heat, stirring vigorously until it starts to thickens. Add the nestle cream, stir, keep it on the heat for a couple more minutes
Remove the saucepan from the heat; add rose water and orange blossom water. Stir and pour over a large serving plate or individual bowls. Set aside until it cools.

Decorate with the whipped cream all over the top then sprinkle with pistachio and your favorite fruit, with some drizzles of honey or sugar syrup on the top.
Enjoy with your kids any time.

for the sugar syrup

1 cup water
1\2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon blossom water
1 teaspoon lemon juice with the lemon peel
1 tablespoon corn syrup

Put all together in a sauce pan except for the lemon juice and the peel, bring to boil, lower the heat, after 10 min add the lemon juice and the peel, let boil for a couple of minutes more, turn it of.