🇲🇦 Morocco
Chebakia
شباكية · chebakia
Ramadan’s sesame flower cookies — spiced, orange-blossom-scented dough folded into rosettes, fried crisp, then bathed in warm honey and showered with sesame.
Serves makes a large batch
Photo to come
Ingredients
- Dough
- 4 cups flour · 1 cup ground toasted sesame seeds
- 1 tsp anise · 1 tsp cinnamon · ½ tsp saffron · ¼ tsp turmeric · pinch mastic · salt
- 1 egg · ¼ cup each melted butter, olive oil, vinegar and orange-blossom water · 1–2 tsp yeast
- To finish
- Oil for frying · honey · orange-blossom water · toasted sesame seeds
Method
- Toast and grind most of the sesame, then mix it with the flour, spices and mastic.
- Work in the egg, butter, oil, vinegar, orange-blossom water and dissolved yeast into a stiff but pliable dough; rest.
- Roll thin, cut into small rectangles, slit them, and fold each into the signature flower shape.
- Fry in batches to a deep golden, keeping the honey warm and frothy with a little orange-blossom water alongside.
- Lift the hot cookies straight into the warm honey and soak until glossy, then drain and shower with sesame.
The family table
Chebakia is the sweet of Ramadan, on every table at iftar to break the fast — eaten right alongside a steaming bowl of harira. Making it is a communal ritual: women gather a week before Ramadan to fold cookies together, often kilos at a time. Also called griouech or mkharka. Keep the honey warm so it soaks in, and fry slowly so the insides crisp before the outsides brown.
Yumma
Middle Eastern home cooking, organized by country. Your family’s version is the one that counts.