How to cook kurabye at home
The history of the appearance of oriental cookies, kurabiye, is very unusual. One day, the Persian Sultan was robbed, and in the palace pantry there were almost no products left for making sweets, so beloved by the ruler. The enterprising servant was not at a loss and quickly baked cookies from what he was able to discover; it included flour, sugar, eggs and butter, and to refine the taste, he flavored the dessert with saffron and decorated with powdered sugar. This simple and tasty sweet pleased the Sultan and became a permanent dish on his table. Actually, “kurabiye” is translated from Arabic as “sweetness.”
Secrets of cooking kurabye at home
The classic Arabic qurabye cookies are made in the shape of a flower with jam or jam in the middle, but sometimes you can find cookies in the shape of a small kolobok or an irregular diamond, because each country has its own traditions of making qurabye.
All recipes have a common basis: butter is mixed with powdered sugar or sugar, an egg or white is added to the mixture, wheat flour is added and always spices, such as cinnamon, cardamom, cloves or vanilla. Eggs are not found everywhere, but spices are required; without them, kurabye will not work.
In Greece, where kurabye is a national pastry, cookies are baked in the form of balls, generously sprinkled with powdered sugar and piled up; in Iran, large amounts of peanuts, almonds and hazelnuts are added to kurabye, and in Turkey, the two halves of the cookies are combined with jam.
How to cook kurabye
Some recipes also contain other products: sour cream, starch, honey, lemon juice and zest, dried fruits, nuts and chocolate. Properly baked cookies are very tender, soft and crumbly, they melt in the mouth, have a delicate creamy taste, soft texture and a subtle aroma of oriental spices.
To knead the dough, you should take products at room temperature, and the butter should be soft. Beating the dough with a mixer or kneading by hand is a personal choice for each housewife; the taste will not change.
Flour is introduced gradually in small portions so that there are no lumps. Keep in mind that you may need a little more or less flour, it all depends on the products you use. The dough should be soft and elastic at the same time.
The cookies can be in any shape: balls, sausages, flatbreads or something more original. The main thing is not to forget to decorate the kurabye with bright jam - it’s tastier and more beautiful. Cookies are baked on an oiled baking sheet or parchment at a temperature of 160–220 °C for no more than 20 minutes. The finished cookies are allowed to cool on a baking sheet and only then transferred to a vase. Kurabye is usually sprinkled with coconut flakes, nuts, powdered sugar and any sweet powders.
"Kurabie"
I advise you to take high-quality butter, 82.5%, you must first remove it from the refrigerator, since the butter should be soft, not melted! You should not replace powder with sugar; if you don’t have ready-made powder, you can prepare it by grinding sugar in a coffee grinder. If the eggs are not large, then you can take 2 egg whites of category C2. My berry center is made from thick blackberry jam, if your jam/jam/jam is liquid, you can thicken it by mixing it with 1/3 tsp. starch. If you don't have any jam at all, try decorating the center with a small piece of chocolate. This amount of ingredients yielded 15 cookies (just over 300 grams); for those who like something for tea, you can safely make a double portion!
To get the flower shape you will need a large diameter toothed nozzle, I have an open star with a 12 mm hole.
So, let's start making cookies! Place the soft butter, powdered sugar, vanilla sugar and salt in a whipping container. Beat with a mixer at high speed for 8-10 minutes, no less! Then add the egg whites and beat for another 5 minutes! Thanks to this long beating, we will get the desired texture of the dough and the finished cookies!
Add 140 g of sifted flour to the whipped mass, stir the flour into the dough using a spatula, look at the consistency: the dough should be pliable, elastic, easily move away from the walls of the bowl; if the dough is too sticky, add the remaining 20 g of flour. I used exactly 160 g of flour, but since the flour is different, the main thing here is not to overdo it; too thick dough will be difficult to remove from the pastry bag.
Transfer the finished dough into a pastry bag (the bag should be strong so that it does not tear).
Place on parchment or a baking mat for cookies (I had enough dough for 15 pieces) at a distance from each other; they will spread a little during baking.
Using a wet index finger, make a depression in the center, preferably deeper, so that the jam does not spread during baking.
Add jam/jelly/jam/chocolate to the middle, I carefully placed it with a coffee spoon, you can do this from a cornet. Place the cookies in an oven preheated to 200 C for 7-8 minutes! Don't leave the oven, I was 1 minute late and overcooked the cookies a little.
Remove the finished cookies from the baking sheet and cool. I added a little more jam to some of the cookies.
Freshly baked “Kurabiye” simply melts into the air, so tender and crumbly, I was very pleased with the taste and the children were delighted with the “flowers”!
Master class: Kurabye according to GOST
Oriental cookies are an amazing delicacy, but many people really like kurabye according to GOST with the taste of childhood. Bake this delicious dessert and add a little extra warmth to your homemade tea party.
Ingredients: butter - 100 g, powdered sugar - 4 tbsp. l., egg white from a large egg - 1 pc. (or 2 small whites), flour - 180 g, vanilla, jam or marmalade - to taste.
Cooking method:
1. Beat soft butter and powdered sugar with a mixer until smooth.
2. Separate the yolk from the white.
3. Add the egg white to the sugar-butter mixture and beat well.
4. Sift the flour, add it to the mixture in small portions, add vanillin and knead into a soft dough.
5. Transfer the dough into a pastry bag or plastic bag with a corner cut off.
6. Cover a baking tray with baking paper.
7. Squeeze the dough out of the pastry bag in small portions, making sure that the distance between the products is at least 1 cm.
8. Place a little jam or marmalade in the center of each cookie.
9. Place the baking sheet in the oven, preheated to 200°C, and bake for 15–20 minutes until nicely golden brown.
10. Cool the kurabye and serve with tea, coffee or milk. These cookies can be given to children at school or taken to work for sweet snacks.
Technology for preparing Baku Kurabye cookies on squirrels with jam (recipe with video)
If you remember, real cookies are very fragile and crumbly. Literally melts in your mouth. For it to turn out this way, you must follow all the cooking rules. The main thing is to knead the dough quickly and immediately add the chamomiles. Therefore, prepare all the products in advance so that you have the right quantities on hand. Immediately turn on the oven at 220°, Kurabye bakes quickly at high temperature. To make baked goods tender and crispy, you will need flour with low gluten content.
Compound
- 2 egg whites (21 g)
- 290 g flour
- 175 g soft butter
- 75 g powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp. apple jam (preferably thick)
1. Mix butter at room temperature with powdered sugar with a mixer until smooth.
2. Pour in the egg whites and beat on high speed until white and slightly stiff. The consistency will be similar to a thick cream. The total beating time is no more than 3 minutes.
3. Add sifted wheat flour to the mixture. Knead the dough not too thick. You should not stir for a long time, otherwise the finished products will turn out elastic and will not crumble. Immediately pour it into a piping bag or syringe and attach a 2.5cm star tip.
4. Squeeze out small stars onto a clean, ungreased baking sheet. Using a wet finger, make a hole in the center of each for the filling and fill with apple jam. It’s convenient to do this from a pastry bag, but if you don’t have one, you can use a spoon.
5. Place the cookies in a hot oven for 7-8 minutes. The baking time depends on the size of the products - the larger they are, the longer it will take (up to 10 minutes). Be guided by color - the ribs should be slightly browned.
Remove the finished products from the oven and cool. Try to break a piece - if it turns out crumbly, then you did everything right.
Spicy oriental kurabye
In the East they say that the more spices in the dough, the tastier the kurabye. Try cooking kurabye with cardamom and see for yourself. Carefully rub 125 g of soft butter with 3 tbsp. l. powdered sugar, add 1 tsp. honey and 1 tsp. lemon juice, zest of 1 lemon and ground spices - 3 cloves and 1 box of cardamom.
Mix the oil-spicy mixture well, mix it with 2 tbsp. l. fat sour cream, mix everything well again, and then add 1 tbsp. l. potato starch and 5 tbsp. l. flour. Knead the dough, which should look like soft plasticine, roll into balls the size of a walnut, press each ball several times with a fork to make the cookies flatter and more beautiful, the lattice pattern will make them spectacular. Bake the kurabiye for 12 minutes. If you like dry cookies, then let them cool in the turned off oven, and if you like crumbly baked goods, take out the kurabiye immediately and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Kurabye in Turkish
Beat with a mixer 150 g of soft butter or margarine with 6 tbsp. l. powdered sugar until fluffy, mix it with 1 egg and a packet of vanillin, add 180 g of corn starch and stir well again. In small portions, literally 1 tbsp. l., add 1 cup of flour, watching the consistency of the dough. As soon as it becomes too difficult to stir, place it on the table and knead with your hands. The finished dough should be soft, but not sticky, after which you need to wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll out a long sausage, cut it into small pieces, form into balls and place them on a parchment-lined sheet. Lightly press the balls so that they become oval, apply patterns to the surface with a fork and bake for 10 minutes in an oven preheated to 170°C.
While the cookies are cooking, melt two bars of any chocolate in a water bath and chop the nuts you like. Dip one side of the finished cookies into melted chocolate and immediately sprinkle with nuts. Glue the halves of the kurabye together with jam or marmalade, brew tea, invite your family and enjoy the delicious dessert.
It’s interesting that when kurabye hit the shelves of European confectionery shops in the 17th century, it was considered an expensive delicacy that only very wealthy people could afford. Oriental sweets are still considered an exquisite delicacy, so if you have not yet prepared kurabye for your family, be sure to do so this coming weekend and arrange a delicious holiday for your loved ones!
Recipe for Kurabye cookies on margarine with chocolate at home
A real dessert according to an oriental recipe for those with a sweet tooth. The result is a very crumbly, crispy and tasty pastry. If you like chocolate flavor, add cocoa. It looks very festive and appetizing. Suitable for those who don't count calories.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp. powdered sugar
- 250 g margarine (at least 80% fat)
- 4 tbsp. wheat flour (or 10 heaped tablespoons)
- 100 ml vegetable oil
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp. cocoa powder
- 0.5 bars of dark chocolate
1. Mix wheat flour, powder and baking powder. Sift through a sieve into a deep bowl.
2. Cut soft margarine into pieces and add to the flour mixture. Rub into fine crumbs with your hands. Then pour in half a glass of vegetable oil and knead a not too tight, soft dough.
3. Divide the mass into two equal parts - one will be white, and the other will be chocolate. In the second, thoroughly stir in the cocoa powder to obtain a uniform coffee shade.
4. To get regular cookies, fill a pastry bag with white mixture, for chocolate cookies - with brown. You can also make it multi-colored; to do this, alternately place a spoonful of light and then dark in the bag. Attach the star-shaped attachment. Squeeze flowers onto a silicone mat or baking sheet. The dough should come out easily without any extra effort.
To form a core inside, lightly twist the nozzle at the end. After this, wet your finger in water and smooth out the space inside, making it even deeper. Fill with jam or date paste if desired.
5. Place the finished products in a hot oven, heated to 180°, for 16-18 minutes. Watch the color - as soon as the flowers turn yellow, remove them immediately. When they have cooled down, start decorating.
6. Melt dark chocolate in a water bath. Dip the top part in and leave to harden on the mat.
The taste will be even better if you sprinkle it with coconut or powdered sugar.
