In Lebanon during Easter, we make wonderful pastries called ma’amoul. The whole family was involved in the making: kneading, rolling, filling, shaping (that was my specialty :-)) and of course baking. The heavenly smell filled the entire house and the hardest part was: you weren’t allowed to eat them if you were fasting; you were supposed to wait till Easter Sunday! The pastry is made with semolina and filling can vary: pistachios, walnuts, almonds or dates. They are truly delicious but not the easiest to make (they need a lot of time!). Hence this lovely walnut and almond cake inspired by the ma’amoul. It’s nutty and flowery at the same time with the addition of orange blossom and rose water; an unmissable addition to many Lebanese desserts. Now you have all the beautiful flavours of the ma’amoul without the hassle of making them! (which I personally rather enjoyed ;-))
Ingredients
Difficulty
For 8-10 persons
- 250 gr butter, softened
- 200 gr sugar
- 4 tablespoons orange blossom water
- 3 eggs
- 2 eggyolks
- 200 gr flour
- 50 gr ground almonds
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 80 ml full-fat milk
- 100 gr almonds
- 150 gr walnuts
Icing
- 4 tablespoons rose water
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon water
- 200 gr icing sugar
Directions
- Heat your oven to 170ºC and line a baking tin with baking parchment.
- In large bowl or food processor, beat the butter, sugar and orange blossom water until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time.
- Fold in the flour and baking powder.
- Roughly chop the almonds and walnuts and fold them into the mixture with the ground almonds.
- Put the mixture into your prepared tin and bake it about 60 minutes. It’s done when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Mix all the icing ingredients together until smooth.
- Once the cake has cooled, spoon the icing over it.
