Ma’amoul

Break open one of these round, domed or oval sweets carved with patterns, and a filling of dates or nuts appears. Ma’amoul of the Middle East is a sweet for which the shell and the filling are made separately, and each piece is wrapped and baked one by one. Inside a crumbly shell, it encloses either a soft, sticky fruit filling or chopped nuts. Making large numbers of these sweets, with family members dividing up the work, is also part of preparing to welcome guests at the end of the fast or at Easter.

Dough rubbed with fat, and patterns pressed from molds

The flour for the shell is semolina alone or semolina combined with wheat flour, and butter or ghee is used. In one recipe (ingredient proportions and method), semolina, wheat flour, butter and a leavening agent are combined into a crumbly mixture and left for 12 hours or more, with milk added afterward; in another method, semolina and fat are rested for 4 hours before rose water, orange blossom water and ghee are added. In both, the flour and fat are worked together first, and the remaining ingredients are added after the mixture has been left to rest.

A cohesive date paste and chopped nuts mixed with sugar or spices are in different states when they are wrapped. The shell is given some thickness so that the sharp edges of the nuts do not tear it; once the opening is closed and the piece is pressed into a wooden mold, the carved pattern transfers to the outside. Lines are sometimes made with a fork, and changing the shape can also serve as a marker of the filling inside. Even when the filling is identified by shape, the pairing of shape and filling varies from maker to maker.

Rose water or orange blossom water perfumes the shell, combined with the flavors of dates, walnuts and pistachios. Sweetness comes not only from the shell but also from the filling and from the powdered sugar sprinkled on after baking.

Ma’amoul madd, baked in 3 layers on a tray

Ma’amoul madd is not wrapped piece by piece; instead, a bottom layer of dough, a filling such as dates or pistachios, and a top layer of dough are stacked on a baking tray. Before baking, cuts and fork patterns are made, and after baking and cooling thoroughly, it is divided into squares. Instead of shaping each piece in a mold, this method sandwiches the filling between upper and lower layers of dough spread across the whole tray.

Dahdah, passed on by Manal Ismail in Hebron, Palestine, is also a sweet spread on a tray and baked. In her household, it is made as a type of ma’amoul. Semolina, walnuts, coconut and cinnamon go between layers of a semolina and wheat-flour shell, and syrup is poured over after baking. Like ma’amoul madd, it is baked large and cut into pieces, but it differs in that the filling includes grain as well as nuts, and in that it is soaked in syrup at the end.

Doughs with egg, and sweets made with cheese or meringue

In western Saudi Arabia, there is a version whose shell is made without semolina, from wheat flour, butter, corn oil, whole eggs and powdered milk. The butter and oil are beaten together, the eggs are added one at a time, and then the dry ingredients are mixed in; the dates are combined with cardamom, fennel and anise. Compared with methods in which the semolina first absorbs the fat, it differs in the type of flour, the use of eggs and the order of mixing.

In the cheese-filled ma’amoul handed down in Latakia and Slinfah in Syria, fat is worked into semolina and wheat flour, the mixture is refrigerated, and it is then brought together with milk and orange blossom water. Unsalted mozzarella or desalted akkawi is wrapped inside, and after shaping, the pieces are chilled again before baking and finished with powdered sugar or pistachios. In this household recipe, the dough and the shaped sweets are each chilled before baking, and the wrapped cheese softens during baking.

Among the karabij made in Lebanese families, there are also versions that pair a baked sweet with a sweet foam. In Nina Dobesh’s recipe, pistachio-filled sweets are baked and served with a meringue scented with rose water. A light foam made separately is combined with the fat-rich shell and the nut filling.

A 19th-century record and the origin of the name ma’amoul

Carlo Landberg’s record of the language and life of the Sidon region, published in 1883, includes a sweet named معمول. It is made with semolina and butter, filled with nuts and sugar or with date paste, and decorated with patterns on the surface. Easter, Carnival and the major Islamic festival are listed as occasions for making it at home. This 19th-century description, too, specifically records the ingredients of the shell and filling, the surface decoration, and the festivals for which the sweet was made.

Maʿmūl is related to the Arabic عمل, meaning “to do, to make,” and is a word form meaning “something made.” Socrates Spiro’s 1895 dictionary of colloquial Egyptian Arabic also gives, in the same entry, both “made, manufactured” and “a kind of Syrian cake.” Following the specific record of how it was made in Sidon, the word also survived in an Egyptian dictionary as the name of a sweet that crossed regional boundaries.

Among older relatives of these filled sweets is kahk. According to food culture scholar Nawal Nasrallah, medieval kahk was a food that travelers on horses and camels carried with them and kept for weeks. Present-day Egyptian kahk also differs in that it does not use semolina. Nasrallah also sees in the date sweets of ancient Mesopotamia a shared custom of preparing filled sweets for festive days. However, it is not clear whether the names or recipes have been passed down unchanged since ancient times.

Family teamwork and the festivals of each community

Before Eid or Easter, family members divide up the dough, the filling, the shaping and the baking. Chef Sami Tamimi recalls relatives sitting in a circle, each taking on their own task. Because enough are made not only for guests but also to share with relatives and friends, the time spent shaping the sweets also becomes an occasion for the family to gather. Shops make them year-round, and they have also been carried on by bakeries abroad with roots in the Middle East.

Jewish families also make ma’amoul for festivals and for guests. Nasrallah lists it as a Purim sweet, and the ANU Museum of the Jewish People reports an example of Moroccan families making it for guests at Mimouna and Sukkot. The museum also holds a record of date-filled ma’amoul from a Karaite family.

Samaritans also eat ma’amoul at Sukkot. The community’s cookbook depicts a scene of coming down from the holy mountain and gathering around the table beside the family sukkah. Alongside ma’amoul, the baked goods include sesame and anise sweets and baklava. Even when the same ma’amoul is on the table, the way families gather and the meaning of the festival differ from community to community.

Glossary