Nan-e Berenji

Nan-e Berenji (نان برنجی) is an Iranian cookie made with rice flour. A pattern is pressed into the surface of each small disc, which is topped with black seeds or finely ground pistachios. The cookie breaks easily when held and crumbles when bitten, and the aromas of rose water and cardamom come through in the dough. It is known as a representative souvenir of Kermanshah in western Iran and is also counted among the sweets of Nowruz.

A literal translation of the name is “rice bread,” but thinking of the bread served with everyday meals makes it hard to understand what this sweet is like. Here, “nan” is used as part of the sweet’s name. The dough is made not from cooked grains of rice but from finely ground rice flour.

An example of nan-e berenji, a traditional sweet of Qazvin (2014, location unknown). Photo: Omid hendupur / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0.

From Kermanshah to the New Year in Other Cities

Nan-e berenji is a specialty of Kermanshah, but Qazvin and Shiraz also have well-known nan-e berenji. Some versions are finished whitish, while others are colored yellow with saffron. A scholarly description of Iranian foods also records a variant called qors-e khorshid, the “sun cookie,” in which saffron dough is filled with almonds and sugar and marked with a thimble. Rice flour cookies also vary in color, filling and shape.

Cookies packed in souvenir boxes and small cookies baked for the New Year and served to guests also differ in size and decoration. Rice flour cookies have been passed down both through the travel custom of bringing home sweets from the places famous for them and through New Year hospitality at home.

Fine Flour and a Fragile Dough

The basic ingredients are rice flour, sugar, fat, eggs and flavorings. The dough does not become elastic like the dough for wheat-flour cookies. The fine flour and the fat give it a crumbly texture. The fineness of the flour and the sifting process affect how the dough feels in the mouth. Records of Iranian cookie making describe sifting rice flour and chickpea flour through a fine sieve or cloth.

Some modern home recipes (the proportions of ingredients and the method) rest the dough in the refrigerator so that the moisture spreads through the rice flour. However, this does not mean that every version of the sweet must be refrigerated.

Some versions use Kermanshah’s dairy fat or ghee as the fat. Some home methods use solid fats and similar ingredients instead. Besides versions made only with rice flour, some also use wheat flour. A survey of traditional Iranian pastries published in 2020 lists both rice flour and wheat flour among the ingredients of nan-e berenji from Yazd and Kermanshah.

From Thimbles to Wooden Stamps

The small patterns on the surface are not carved after baking. They are pressed in when the dough is shaped. In one traditional method, small portions of dough were flattened in the palm and marked with a thimble. Methods using dedicated wooden tools, and methods in which the dough is rolled out and cut with a cutter, are also recorded. Cookies sold in shops are sometimes larger than the small ones made at home.

As a finishing touch, ground pistachios or black seeds are scattered on top. Some sources describe the black seeds as poppy seeds, while others say siyahdaneh, that is, nigella, is used, so the two cannot be treated as the same ingredient. The pattern and the way the seeds are scattered are small clues for telling apart surfaces that all have a pale baked color.

Because the baked dough is fragile, packing it as a souvenir also takes care. One recorded method places paper between the layers and packs the cookies in wooden boxes. Keeping well as a souvenir is different from withstanding impact. Separating the layers with thin paper is a way of dealing with the delicate nature of the dough.

Left: the stage of pressing a pattern into the surface of the disc. Right: a simplified cross-section showing how easily the baked dough breaks. The diagram does not show tool dimensions or the proportions of rice flour and wheat flour. This is a schematic diagram and not to scale. Diagram: original illustration by Sweetlore.

Glossary