Kleicha

Ingredients

Dough

• 600 gplain flour
• 200 gghee or butter, melted
• 7 ginstant yeast
• 100 mlwarm milk
• 50 gsugar
• 1 tbspground cardamom
• 1 tspground fennel or mahleb
• ½ tspsalt
• 1egg

Date filling

• 500 gdate paste
• 50 gbutter
• 1 tspground cardamom
• 1 tspground aniseed
• ½ tspground nutmeg

Walnut filling

• 200 gwalnuts, chopped
• 100 gsugar
• 1 tspcardamom
• 2 tbsprose water

To finish

• 1egg yolk beaten with milk
• nigella or sesame seeds

Directions

1. Warm the ghee and pour it over the flour, rubbing it in thoroughly until the flour looks damp and sandy.
2. Work the fat in properly and let it sit ten minutes before anything wet goes near it. Coating the flour in fat first is what makes kleicha short and crumbly rather than bready.
3. Add the yeast, sugar, cardamom, fennel and salt, then the warm milk and egg, and bring it to a soft dough.
4. Knead lightly, for two or three minutes only, and rest it an hour.
5. Do not knead it like bread. Developing gluten here gives a tough cookie, and the yeast is for flavour and tenderness rather than for rise.
6. Warm the date paste with the butter and spices and work it until soft and spreadable.
7. If the date paste is stiff, warm it further and beat in a spoonful of hot water. A hard filling tears the dough as you roll it.
8. For the date rolls, roll a piece of dough into a rectangle about 3 mm thick.
9. Spread the date paste thinly and evenly right to the edges.
10. Roll it up into a tight log from the long side, then cut across into rounds about 1.5 cm thick.
11. Cut with a sharp knife and a single decisive stroke. Sawing squashes the spiral flat and the pattern is the whole look of it.
12. For the walnut version, mix the walnuts, sugar, cardamom and rose water and enclose spoonfuls in discs of dough, sealed into half-moons and crimped.
13. Set them on lined trays, brush with egg yolk, and scatter nigella or sesame over.
14. Bake at 180°C (355°F) for 20 to 25 minutes, until pale golden.
15. Take them out pale rather than brown. They should be sandy and short, and colour means they have dried out.
16. Cool them completely on the trays, because they are fragile while warm.
17. They are baked for Eid, for Easter and for Nowruz, by Iraqi Muslims, Christians and Jews alike, which is why it is fairly called the national cookie.
18. The date version is the oldest, and Iraqi dates are what it was built around.

Technique

• Mahleb, ground cherry stone, is the traditional aromatic and fennel is the common stand-in.
• They keep for weeks in a tin, which is why they are made in enormous batches.
• There is a third classic filling, sugar and butter, folded into a disc called khfefiyya.

Substitutions

• Block date paste softened with butter, which is what most kitchens use.
• Butter in place of ghee, at some cost to the flavour.

Variations

• Filled with sweetened desiccated coconut.
• Plain sugar-filled discs.
• Shaped into crescents rather than spirals.

History

Iraq’s national cookie, filled with date paste or nuts and stamped with a carved cutter for Eid.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kleicha?

Kleicha is a dessert from Iraq: cardamom cookies spiraled with date paste; the national cookie. Iraq’s national cookie, filled with date paste or nuts and stamped with a carved cutter for Eid.

How long does Kleicha take to make?

Kleicha takes 1 hr plus 1 hr resting of preparation and 25 min of cooking. The recipe makes about 40. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Kleicha?

Yes, within limits. Block date paste softened with butter, which is what most kitchens use. Butter in place of ghee, at some cost to the flavour.

What is the most important thing to get right in Kleicha?

Work the fat in properly and let it sit ten minutes before anything wet goes near it. Coating the flour in fat first is what makes kleicha short and crumbly rather than bready.