Kleicha

Hello! Welcome back to ANEW recipe, this one comes from my Middle Eastern roots! The Kleicha cookie originated in Mesopotamia and has been a staple savory dessert cookie and is known to be the National cookie of Iraq, and is eaten in Saudia Arabia, Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries as well.

It’s a healthy cookie and is filled with dates, ground nuts, cardamom and sometimes even more! It also comes in all shapes and sizes.

I have used a couple different types of dough too, from pie dough to pastry dough, and I’m going to share my favorite.

And, it’s a quick go to snack that bakes in less than 15 minutes that can be kept and stored for up to a week if you can manage to keep your hand out of the cookie jar!!!

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup walnuts, ground in food processor, add a dash of cinnamon if you’d like

Puff pastry squares ( I use 1 for each person)

Ground cardamom

Date paste

2 tbsp butter (melted to pat on top before placing in oven)

Parchment paper

Cookie sheet

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350°F

Line the cookie sheet with parchment paper

Lay out a piece of puff pastry, sprinkle cardamom very lightly across the puff pastry, place date paste in a row, at one end, spread out a little gently, add your ground walnuts, and pat gently.

Gently roll the end of the puff pastry with the date paste and continue rolling until it’s a roll. As seen in photo above.

Cut into 1 inch slices and place the cookies gently onto the parchment lined cookie sheet, repeat for however many pieces and rolls you’d like!

Brush the melted butter across the cookies and sprinkle the rest of the ground walnuts on top.

Place in the oven and bake for 7 minutes and check, oven temperature can very, if not done check in 2-3 minute intervals until golden but not too brown. They are so light and fluffy. And delicious!

Serve warm, cold or room temp!

Enjoy!

~ANEWblog