quick sweet recipes: Here’s A Guide To Making The Perfect, Beautifully Coiled M’hanncha

The M’hancha is a Moroccan pastry shaped into coils, and can be small for individual servings or larger to serve at gatherings. The coil consists of almond paste which is the filling, and can be made in different ways. The dessert can be topped with a generous dusting of powdered sugar, a brushing of warm honey or ground or sliced almonds. The m’hanncha can also be made savoury, but this detailed guide teaches you how to make the dessert. So follow this quick sweet recipe, pay attention to the details, and you have a delectable dessert on your hands.

Ingredients

• 500 gm almonds
• Vegetable oil, for frying
• 225 gm granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or to taste
• Pinch of mastic, or gum Arabic powder
• 60 gm unsalted butter, softened
• 40 ml orange flower water
• 10 warqa leaves
• 1 large egg yolk, slightly beaten
• 100 gm unsalted butter, melted
• 1 large egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water or milk
• 1 cup honey mixed with a little orange flower water
• Coarsely ground or sliced almonds
• confectioners' sugar
• ground cinnamon

Directions:

• First, make the almond paste. Blanch and peel the almonds. Let them dry, then fry half of them in oil until they are golden brown. Be careful not to overfry and burn them. Remove the almonds in a strainer or on paper towels. Then place the fried and unfried almonds in a food processor with the sugar. Process until the mixture is powdery and starts to turn into a paste. Transfer the paste to a bowl. Then add the cinnamon, gum Arabic butter and orange and mix it all in with your hands. Knead with your hands until everything is evenly combined into a smooth almond paste.
• Take some of the paste and squeeze it into a log shape. Roll the log on your work surface to make it a long stick of paste, about as thick as a finger. Repeat this process with the rest of the remaining almond paste. Set aside.
• Preheat the oven to 350°F or 177°C.
• Line a baking pan with parchment paper.
• Place the warqa leaves into a stack and trim across the top and bottom with a knife or scissors to create rectangular leaves.
• On a work surface, arrange four rectangles, overlapping each with pastry dough. Use egg yolks to seal the overlapped edges of the dough. The length of the overlapping pastry leaves should accommodate half of the almond paste logs. Brush the leaves with melted butter.
• Place the almond paste logs along the length of the pastry and press the logs into a single long roll. Now enclose the almond paste in the warqa pastry by rolling it up from the bottom to the top. Before the roll is complete, brush the last inch or two of exposed pastry dough at the top with egg yolk, then continue to roll to the top edge of the seal.
• Now carefully coil the wrapped almond paste, starting from the left end. Be gentle and avoid cracking the pastry as you work. Brush the hollow part of the pastry, at the end of the outermost coil, with egg yolk and tuck it under the coil. Press to seal the bottom. Repeat this process with the remaining logs of almond paste. You can create a new pastry or continue the length of the existing coil.
• Place the coil on the baking pan and brush with melted butter and then the egg wash. Bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown.
• Then remove from the pan. You can garnish with warm honey mixed with orange flower water and add chopped or sliced almonds on top. Or you can add a generous amount of powdered sugar on top. Another garnish option is ground cinnamon. Or skip the garnishing completely.
• Serve cool.

Notes, tips and tricks:

• Leave some space to the right of the after the log is placed on it so the hollow part can be tucked in under the m’hanncha once it is shaped.
• If you want to make it beforehand, you can make the entire pastry, wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze. Then bake on the day of serving, giving it more time in the heat.