Video
Chebakia / Mkharka - Moroccan Sweet
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raw sesame seeds
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon ground anise
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- Pinch of mastic gum (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 tablespoon dry yeast + 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 tablespoon orange blossom water
- Pinch of saffron threads
- 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
- 1/2 cup warm water
- Vegetable oil for frying
- Honey mixed with a little orange blossom water
- Toasted sesame seeds for decoration
Directions
Preparing the Ingredients:
1- First, pour ½ cup of raw sesame seeds in a flat pan. Toast the sesame seeds on medium heat for around 5 minutes, while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Taste the sesame seeds to check if they are ready, they should lose their raw taste and gain a warm roasted taste instead. Using a food mixer, grind the toasted sesame seeds until you get a fine powder.
2- In a small bowl, mix 1/ 2 tablespoon of orange blossom water with a pinch of saffron threads. Let it sit for a few minutes before using it.
3- In another small bowl, activate ½ tablespoon of dry yeast by mixing it with ½ teaspoon of sugar and a little bit of warm water. Let it sit for a few minutes before using it.Making the Dough:
1- Now, we are going to mix all the dry ingredients together. In a large bowl, mix 2 cups of all purpose flour, the ground sesame seeds, ½ teaspoon of ground anise and ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a pinch of mastic gum that you crush with a bit of sugar to get a powder (if you don’t have mastic gum you can just omit it), and finally ½ teaspoon of baking powder mixed with a pinch of salt. Using your hand, mix all the dry ingredients together.
2- Add a mixture of 1 ½ tablespoon of olive oil , 1 ½ tablespoon of vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon of melted butter. Continue mixing until all the ingredients are well incorporated.
3- Now add ½ teaspoon of white vinegar, the orange blossom water with the saffron, the yeast, and 1 egg yolk. Add ½ cup of warm water, little by little, while mixing all the ingredients with your hand, until you can make a dough ball. The dough should not be wet or sticky, that’s why you should add the water little by little and not at once.
4- Place the dough on your kitchen counter, and knead it with quick and energetic movements using the palms of your hands. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes until it becomes soft and elastic.Kneading and Shaping the Cookies:
1- Using a sharp knife cut the dough into 6 equal portions. Take each portion and roll it into a thin layer using a rolling pin, but not too thin.
2- Here my grandmother is using a Chebakia mold to cut the dough, but no worries, we’ll show you how to shape it without the mold. Using the mold, cut the dough into squares with 5 columns. To shape the chabakia, first take columns 1, 3, and 5 using the middle finger of your right hand. Then using your left hand, flip columns 2 and 4, with the other columns, inside out, and you will get a flower shape. Place the flower on the counter and pinch its outer corners.
3- If you don’t have a mold, you can use a pastry cutter to cut even squares. In each square, make 4 evenly lengthwise cuts. The squares are approximately the size of your palm. Again shape the chebakia the same way as with the mold.
4- Now, if you find it difficult to shape these cookies, just cut even strips and twist them!Frying the Cookies:
1- Place the cookies in a pan, and let them rest while heating the frying oil.
2- To fry the chebakia, you will need two things. First, heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan until hot. At the same time, in a saucepan heat some honey mixed with a little bit of orange blossom water. The honey should reach a boiling point – after that, reduce the heat to medium to keep it hot.
3- Start frying the chebakia in the oil – remember the oil has to be hot. The chebakia is done when it gets a beautiful golden brown color in all sides. When done, immediately remove the chebakia from the frying oil and dip it in the hot honey. Once totally soaked in honey, remove the chebakia from the honey and place it in a sieve to drain. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.
4- Let the chebakia cool down for several hours before serving. You can store chebakia in an airtight container for up to one month if you keep it at room temperature or 4 months if you freeze it!It’s crunchy, it’s soft, it’s sweet… it’s just perfect!
Bonne appétit!
Comments (21)
merci bp alia vous éte le meilleure
Alia,
le ramadan approche. j'aimerais savoir où ta grand mère trouve l'emporte pièce pour couper les carrés de chebbakia. cette année je vais essayer ta recette pour le ramadan.
3ouacher m'barka.
Hi,
I've already tried your recipes for harcha and msemmen and for the first time i managed to make them perfectly, so i will definitely be trying your recipe for chebekiya for Ramadan. however, i was wondering about the white vinegar in this recipe. i could only find distilled malt vinegar (it's clear) i'm assuming you don't mean white wine vinegar. have i got the correct vinegar? if i omit it from the recipe will it affect the final result?
thanks!!!
so glad you liked the recipes! yes, just regular white vinegar.
3washer mbarka. I tried most of your recipies and I love them. I'm going to try chebekiya. Would you tell me where your grand mother got the chebekiya mold I'll be thankful.
Thank you again and keep them coming. :D
the mold is from Morocco.
Hi Alia, Ramadan is approaching and yesterday I tried your Chebakia recipe and I´m so lucky that i managed to make them perfectly.It works so good. Normally I used another recipe and had every year the same desaster that it didn`t works. I´m so thankfully that I found your website by hazard. So Shebakia works good so I will try next your recipes of M´semmen and harcha some other things that always leaded to a desaster in my kitchen. I will report how it works.
wow awesome!!! chebakia is a hard one!! good job :-)
Alia, my mother-in-law showed me how she makes chebakia and I wrote down her recipe (from her head)...but I have tried to make them several times and they never turn out right! This year I tried your recipe and my husband liked them alot! I'll be using your recipe going forward. :-)
awesome!!! so glad you liked it!
Alia, I made these last weekend and they were great! When I made them today though, they puffed up alot in the oil and lost their shape. What could I have done to cause that? Thanks!
ooo, not sure. puffing up is either related to baking powder (you didnt use baking soda instead? baking powder is what you need). or maybe when your rolled the dough it was too thick. other than that, the other ingredients are pretty straight forward.
I definitely used baking powder so that can't be it. I have a feeling the dough was too thick. I'm sure it was me, whatever it was, because the first time around they came out great! I'll give it another shot. :-) Thanks for the fast response.
Ohhhhh My GOD the best chebakia ever!!!! thank you for the receipe. Could you please put some receipes for harcha???
Harcha is already in there :-) http://cookingwithalia.com/index.php?option=com_zoo&task=item&item_id=16&Itemid=110
Dear Alia,
Thank you so much for the receipe. I live in a country where you can not buy Moroccan sweets, so your receipies are very important!
It went good from the first time! The second portion though the dough did not become elastic, thus the result was not that good. Do you know the reason why it was so and what could be done in case the dough is not elastic? Thanks again!
Hi Mara, not sure what happened. Maybe you did not knead the dough enough or you did not add enough water. that's the 2 reasons I can think of.
Hi Alia love you and all your recipes !! :)
love you too! :-)
I have always wanted to make these and my mum didnt know the recipe... thnk you so much for making these look so easy!! Will let you know how it turns out!
Thank you so much for your great effort to make these delicious dishes. I want to know how to make (Almshabak) which is made in the markets in Marocco with semolina and without vinegar????
Thank you so much. God be with you