For me, Christmas tradition begins with food:
Growing up Christmas wasn't Christmas without the trio of desserts Granddad and Silvija lovingly prepared. Though we always had truffles, rocky road chocolate rinds and biscotti provided by other members of the family, it was these three desserts that represented Christmas tradition.
Unlike the Piragi which were Silvija's tradition, these were Granddad's, stemming from his childhood in Egypt. My mother's favourite was the Ghoreheba/ghorayebah, small mounds of shortbread spiked with a single clove before being smothered in icing sugar. For my cousins, I believe it was the Cornetti, triangles of pastry filled with apricot jam, while in our house my sister and I preferred to fight over the Kahk. Minced dates wrapped inside short pastry, these are the fiddliest to make, a challenge I decided this Christmas to undertake. Normally, my sister would make the traditional foods while I focussed on the biscotti and truffles, but this year her absence and my Grandfather's hinting encouraged me to attempt them myself, (otherwise I knew I wouldn't get any at all).
Now it's not that the recipe is convoluted: its a simple butter pastry wrapped around minced dates. It's just that the pastry needs to be of a certain texture and elasticity and with an ambiguous water quantity to add to the pastry its difficult to ensure you have achieved this consistency or even anything vaguely resembling it. It doesn't help that the last time I made these would have been about five years ago(when me sister was still experimenting with the butter/water ratio) and the last time I tasted them was close to three years ago.
So, with time and effort and a little of a devil-may-care attitude I attempted Kahk:
I just hope Granddad thinks they're up to standard.
Growing up Christmas wasn't Christmas without the trio of desserts Granddad and Silvija lovingly prepared. Though we always had truffles, rocky road chocolate rinds and biscotti provided by other members of the family, it was these three desserts that represented Christmas tradition.
Unlike the Piragi which were Silvija's tradition, these were Granddad's, stemming from his childhood in Egypt. My mother's favourite was the Ghoreheba/ghorayebah, small mounds of shortbread spiked with a single clove before being smothered in icing sugar. For my cousins, I believe it was the Cornetti, triangles of pastry filled with apricot jam, while in our house my sister and I preferred to fight over the Kahk. Minced dates wrapped inside short pastry, these are the fiddliest to make, a challenge I decided this Christmas to undertake. Normally, my sister would make the traditional foods while I focussed on the biscotti and truffles, but this year her absence and my Grandfather's hinting encouraged me to attempt them myself, (otherwise I knew I wouldn't get any at all).
Now it's not that the recipe is convoluted: its a simple butter pastry wrapped around minced dates. It's just that the pastry needs to be of a certain texture and elasticity and with an ambiguous water quantity to add to the pastry its difficult to ensure you have achieved this consistency or even anything vaguely resembling it. It doesn't help that the last time I made these would have been about five years ago(when me sister was still experimenting with the butter/water ratio) and the last time I tasted them was close to three years ago.
So, with time and effort and a little of a devil-may-care attitude I attempted Kahk:
I just hope Granddad thinks they're up to standard.
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