Gazelle horns – Arab sweets with almond stuffing
INGREDIENTS:
Makes 24-25 sweets
For the dough:
400 g all-purpose flour
170 g soft butter
2 eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
2-3 tablespoons water
orange blossom essence
For the filling:
320 g ground almonds
160 g powdered sugar
40 g soft butter
3-4 tablespoons apricot jam
½ teaspoon cinnamon
PREPARATION:
Dough
Put the flour in a bowl and make an indentation in it. Add the melted butter, eggs, water, essence and salt. Knead into a smooth dough and shape it into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and leave it to rest for about 30 minutes in the fridge.
Filling
Crush the almonds and mix them with the sugar, soft butter, jam and cinnamon. Make walnut-sized balls out of the resulting mix.
Transform them into horn-like shapes as shown on the photo below.
Divide the dough into 3 parts and roll it out into wide strips (2-3 mm thick). Put one “horn” of the filling onto a strip of dough and roll.
Cut the dough along the edge of the horn, press onto it to stick where you cut and bend it into a crescent shape.
Repeat the same for the remaining horns.
Traditionally a pastry crimper called maggash (maqqaş) is used for decoration. If you don’t have such a tool you can use regular tweezers or decorate as you wish.
Place them onto a sheet of baking paper and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 15 minutes using the oven’s venting system or until they brown a little.
