Edible art that will knock your socks off. Maamoul + mooncake + non traditional fillings...GORGEOUS!

The kitchen is my playground... I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about food, textures, flavor combinations, baking and cooking techniques... I love taking traditional foods and turning them on their heads...mashing together cultures, stretching the boundaries of traditions and I guess breaking a lot of rules....

It‘s hard for me to put a name to something like this cookie...the food police pop up when I say the name maamoul which is a Middle Eastern cookie traditionally made of semolina and filled with dates and/or nuts, shaped using wooden molds which have designs that become stamped into the cookie depending on the type of filling. Same food police don’t like it that I’ve used traditional Chinese mooncake molds, usually used for Chinese Mid-Autumn festivals celebrating the Harvest Moon, to shape my non traditional maamoul. But aren’t they pretty?

So I’ve taken two elements from different cultures and mashed them together to make this fabulous looking and just as fabulous tasting cookie. I’ve changed the traditional maamoul dough by adding more flour, less semolina and a tiny bit more sugar. The semolina adds a great crunch factor to what otherwise is a shortbread dough...

The mooncake molds I use are such an amazing kitchen tool. They are perfect for shaping filled cookies like these but also great used as cookie cutters and cookie stamps (see the sugar cookies on my blog). I truly love these things! So many beautiful designs... but the cookies can also be shaped by hand if you don’t have a mold. Just let your hands shape them and make you own designs on top using a fork or butter knife to make the design, but trust me when I say that these molds are sooooo worth having!!!

I will give as detailed instructions as possible with pictures below. I use the smaller mooncake molds, they are about 1 1/2 inches and it’s important that you dust these with flour between each cookie. The dough ball you are filling them with should only fill them about 3/4 way full so that you can have the space to stamp down firmly on parchment lined baking sheets in order to get the compact shape and deep designs engraved. You can make them smaller as well by making the dough balls smaller and filling the molds 1/2 way. Make sure the filling is fully covered by dough but I have to say today I made some strawberry filled cookies and some of the filling showed through at times and it looked pretty. The filling is up to you. It has to be something firm or something that can hold its shape and not melt with the heat as it bakes. I have made them filled with guava paste, dates, dried strawberries, fig and apricot smashed up together... so many possibilities!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups semolina flour

1 cup AP flour

4 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl mix together semolina, flour, sugar, salt and butter. The mixture won’t come together completely and that’s ok.

3. Add the milk and vanilla if using to the semolina flour mixture and stir together to form a cohesive dough. 4. Let dough rest for 15 minutes. This is important as this allows the flours to hydrate well so that you can form the dough balls and fill them. 5. While the dough rests get your filling/fillings ready. Remember it can be as simple as a pitted date or cube of guava paste, or you can place dried fruit and spices in a food processor. Any filling that can be shaped or scooped into a small ball works. Don’t use fillings that will melt, jams will leak through dough as the cookie bakes. 6. Once the dough has rested, it’s time to start shaping and filling the cookies.

7. Take about a tablespoon or so of dough in your hand and flatten it out to make a well in the center. Place a small amount of filling in the middle of the dough and fold the dough around the filling to enclose it. If you need more dough pinch some from the bowl and patch up any exposed filling. Roll gently to form a smooth ball or oval that will fit your particular mold.

8. Dip the mold in flour and fill 3/4 of the way (or less for smaller cookies) with the filled dough. If you have filled it too much just pinch off the excess and put the excess with the dough in the bowl. 9. Place the mooncake mold on the parchment and holding the base firmly down with one hand, press down gently but firmly on the stamper to shape the dough compactly and engrave deeply with the mooncake stamp design. As you push down on the stamper slowly lift up the mold to let the cookie shape come down out of the mold.

10. Place shaped cookies about 1-2 inches apart, these cookies don’t spread much and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Even the smaller cookies take about 15 minutes to bake. 11. Let cool completely. Enjoy!

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