The lovely Barbara runs the dried fruits and nuts counter at Harkola.
I love shopping when she’s there – apart from being great fun, she’s also an extremely kind soul who will often teach me new recipes as she’s weighing up our purchases. She called this one out over the counter to me, and I noted it down on my iPhone.
Like most experienced cooks, Barbara’s instructions can sometimes be a little vague…
“What temperature is the oven?”
“Usual oven temperature..”
“How much milk do I need to add?”
“Just whatever you need..”
As always, her recipes result in a mountain of food, so feel free to scale the quantities down. I made it as I was instructed – and took a sample back to Harkola for Barbara to try. She advised me that the cookies are traditionally baked a bit harder than mine were (to ensure a longer keeping time), but I was pretty happy with how they turned out.
The cookies are known as Kaak, and they’re flavoured with mahlep – a spice made from the ground kernels of the St Lucie cherry tree. It’s wonderfully aromatic and often used in baklava…
- 1kg (6¾ cups) self-raising flour
- 440g (2 cups) white sugar
- 3 large (59g) free range eggs
- 250g (1 cup) unsalted butter
- 160g (2/3 cup) milk, or as needed
- 1 – 1½ teaspoons ground mahlep (or try vanilla or ground aniseed)
- sesame seeds for topping
Barbara’s instructions were simply to “mix everything together”. Here’s a workable method I came up with after a little trial and error…
1. Preheat the oven to 175C (350F) with fan. Line as many oven trays as you can with parchment paper (you’ll need lots!).
2. Pulse the flour, sugar and butter in the food processor until the butter is incorporated and the mixture is crumbly. I had to do this in two batches, as the quantities are enormous, even for the Magimix!
3. In a large mixing bowl, stir the mahlep through the flour-butter mixture.
4. In a small jug, whisk together the eggs and milk. Pour this into the flour mixture, and work the ingredients together with your hands to form a stiff dough.
5. Roll the dough into smooth, walnut sized balls. Flatten them out, dip them in sesame seed and lay them on the parchment lined trays, allowing a little room for spreading. The sesame seeds are optional, and the cookies are also quite nice without them. I bought decorative moulds at Harkola, and pressed some of the dough balls against them to form a patterned top – although a lot of the detail is lost as the dough bakes…
6. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, rotating the trays halfway through the baking time, until the cookies are well browned. Store in an airtight container. Any excess can be frozen quite successfully.
These chunky cookies have a texture reminiscent of both shortbread and rock cakes, and they’ve been surprisingly popular. Which is just as well, as Barbara’s quantities make a huge batch. I’m off to deliver some to the neighbours now!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Sure wish I was your neighbour. Love those moulds, noticed the handles are also carved.
Norma, aren’t they gorgeous? I haven’t tried making anything in the handles yet!
I will have to cut this one in half- but I love sesame seed cookies. So I am going to make them with aniseed- they look beautiful!
Heidi, I hope you like them! They’ve proven really REALLY popular here – the boys have demolished the half batch I had out of the freezer, and the neighbours have been over asking for the recipe!
Hi Celia
I am having a lot of trouble getting mahlep in Perth. I need it to make my Ma’mools (Remember my quest for the mould?). I try every vaguely Middle Eastern shop I go past but still no luck. I may have to come back to Syney!!
Glenda, would you like me to send you some? Or you can order the whole kernels from Herbie’s Spices (www.herbies.com) and grind them yourself. The Herbie’s option is an expensive one though – it was about $40/kg from Harkola, and $8.20 for 45g from Herbie’s! :)
I realized that if I gently used my presses right after the cookies come from the oven, the design shows perfectly.
Sally, these cookies came out of the oven quite firm, so I’m not sure it would work, but I’ll definitely try that next time I make shortbread, thank you! :)
I wish I could try these now, Celia. News isn’t great over on this side of the world, so your posts give me tiny bits of cheer.
I’m sorry to hear that, Em. Do take care. xx
Morning darling, John has been on a quest to find the perfect aniseed cookies and i see that we can substitute aniseed here. So i shall quickly jot this down for him.. thank you, you may have saved me from many dubious cookie tastings.. c
Celi, these are like a rock cake – a little dry and floury – not sure if that’s what John’s after? You might also be interested in the Speculaas recipe – that’s a crisp, aniseedy bikkie:
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2011/01/19/speculaas/
Just sitting here imagining those flavors if they were baking in my oven this morning, Celia! I love that this recipe uses a spice I hadn’t heard of and cookie presses that I’ve never seen! I also love Sally’s advice to press them after they bake, maybe that would work? xx
Barb, the mahlep is a fascinating spice, I’m was so pleased to find out about it! I’m definitely going to try the “post-bake stamp” technique Sally suggested! :)
Mmmm,scrummy!
Thank you! :)
An interesting recipe, Celia. I hadn’t heard of mahlep.
Lizzy, I hope you find some, it’s very nice!
This woman would make shopping fun. What enormous quantities of flour and sugar but so light-on with the other ingredients. I’ve never heard of that spice but would like to try it. Love your cookie thingies that give the cookies that pretty pattern xx
Charlie, that’s true, isn’t it? It’s two to three times the flour in normal cookies, but the same quantity of sugar and butter! The cookie moulds are gorgeous!
I’ve not heard of mahlep either and don’t have a resource like Harkola to hand. :-( I have just recently found a Moroccan recipe for something similar to biscotti which uses sesame seeds, anise (I might have to use fennel) and orange water which sounds pretty delicious too.
Amanda, I’m always surprised when you say that, I thought SA had some amazing foodie resources?
Nothing better than a biscuit recipe that yields oodles :-) I read one recently that gave 8 biscuits in the end. 8 biscuits??
Hehehe…seems a lot of work if you only end up with eight bikkies! :)
Lucky neighbours! The recipes in my grandma’s book are a bit like that. The cookies I made yesterday just said ‘bake in a moderate oven.’ No temp or time.
Claire, I think the older recipes presume experience on our parts that isn’t necessarily there! :)
Wow! These look so lovely – those moulds are stunning :)
I might try and make some for Christmas! :)
Celia, I nearly fell off my chair when I read the first ingredient was 1kg flour!! I can’t imagine how many biscuits this recipe must make. Glenda, if I find mahlep somewhere in Perth I’ll let you know. :)
Pam, I know! I was standing at the counter saying, “A kilo? Are you sure, Barbara?” :D Do you want me to send mahlep to you too?
Hi lovely Celia! Oh these Kaaks bring back memories of my gran in Lebanon where we grew up having them for brekky, lunch and dinner with cups of home brewed tea! Ah those were the days! Just a note: the Mahlep (we say Mahleb), does make A HUGE DIFFERENCE in the taste! It gives that authentic , homey traditional taste. That’s it! I think I’m going to start on some right now! There goes the diet!!! thanks a lot Celia! :)
Lina, how wonderful! Thank you for your comment – my boys are certainly enjoying them, although Small Man has announced that he prefers the ones without sesame seeds, which is not very traditional at all. :)
These look great but I don’t know if I would start a recipe where the directions were “use enough.” I wish I lived closer.
I wish you did too. My kitchen was overflowing with cookies, and I would have love to have been able to share them with you!
I’ve never heard of that spice before! What else do you use it for?
Em, Barbara tells me that they’re also used in the baklava nests with the walnuts and pistachios? I believe it’s widely used in Greek cooking as well!
Your friend Barbara sounds as if she’s channeling my Mom. “A little of this”, “quite a bit of that”, “a hot oven”, we would exasperate each other whenever I tried to get a recipe from her. Eventually, I caught on, though, just like you did with these cookies. Those moulds of yours are beautiful and the cookies sound delicious but, then again, I doubt that Barbara would steer you wrong. :)
John, she’s just gorgeous, and would make any Italian nonna proud! :) Barbara has never steered me wrong, especially now that I’ve figured out that her recipes feed a horde!
we find easily here too mahlep and of course mastic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistacia_lentiscus). we use it very often in our sweets and breads! see hellenic packaging of 8grs for ‘mahl’epi’ at http://www.sunspices.gr/old_site/product_057.html and of 5 grs for ‘mast’icha’ at http://www.sunspices.gr/old_site/product_056.html .
can i send to you these small packages via post or is it against australian post regulations concerning incoming food from abroad? thx & kisses! gina
Gina, you are so sweet, thank you! But please don’t send anything – both Mastic and Mahlep are available here, and our Australian Quarantine rules are very strict about any forms of food coming into the country!
Oh I just love those patterned presses Celia! So beautiful indeed, and I’m intrigued with the mahlep too as I love trying new ingredients xox
Becca, if those presses are there next time I go to Harkola, I’m going to buy some for you!
I’d love to see a photo of how those presses work. They are beautiful. I’d eat one of those sesame cookies for breakfast. :-)
Maz
Maz, I’m not sure how the presses are actually supposed to work, but we were squishing the dough between them. Because it was quite a firm dough, the cookies weren’t too hard to get off!
Nice job recreating the recipe, Celia – I know what you mean by great cooks (and bakers) often being vague. My former Mother in law is like that. I wanted so bad to be able to make her roasted duck with apples, but…. she simply could NOT come up with a recipe
If you find out how to make the designs “stick” to the cookie after baking, let me know – I guess you got a good suggestion on the comments, maybe that’s it!
(I am camping in our empty house for a week, so my presence in the net will be iffy for a while, I can only surf tne net during small breaks at work)
It’s hard to get someone who cooks by feel and instinct to come up with a recipe, isn’t it? I hope the camping out went ok, love. x
i want oven-fresh cookies with my cup of tea now! and thanks for educating me about mahlep.
Thanks E! It’s Saturday morning, and I’m finally well enough to get to comments, and now I want a cup of tea and cookies too, but the boys have eaten them all! :)
I love recipes like that – a little bit of this …. The moulds look great and I love that you can just see a pattern on the cookies :)
Tandy, I wish you could see the pattern a bit more, but it’s still quite nice as it is. :)
I think property prices in your street are going to go up soon ;)
Ha! I hope none of our neighbours ever move! :)
Ooh another spice I haven’t heard of. I’ll see if I can find some as I’d be interested to try it. Your cookies look quite spectacular and the definition of your presses looks quite good. I’m trying to find a good biscuit recipe that has a good definition for using my cookie stamp – I haven’t found one yet.