Halwat Tabaa

So I am currently in Morocco and I spend my time cooking with my friends. We made these doughnuts because it was time. I had the iron you need for this recipe for over 5 years! These iron doughnuts can be found everywhere in the Maghreb, in Asia (in Cambodia and Thailand with lotus flower shapes), but also in Norway (and also in all of Scandinavia)! There, these cakes are called “rosettes” and there are many different iron patterns. I had bought more irons in Oslo. Usually they are simply covered with powdered sugar. In this oriental version, they are dipped in a syrup and then covered with roasted almonds with powdered sugar and cinnamon. You can imagine why this is the one that ends up in my blog! An ultra-crispy delight! For iron, you can find many different kinds on the internet.

Recipe:

Dough:

140g of cornstarch
15g of flour
3 large eggs

Syrup:

250g of sugar
350g of water
2 slices of lemon

Almonds :

300g of almonds without skin
2 tablespoons of powdered sugar
1+1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

Start by preparing the syrup. You can even get started the night before. Place sugar, water and lemon slices in a saucepan.

Bring to a boil, then let boil over low heat for 50 minutes to 1 hour. After this time, the syrup obtained is yellow and a little a pale caramel color.

For the almonds, the best is to fry them, it will give a beautiful and more uniform coloring. At worst, you can roast them in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 175°C. For the traditional way, place the almonds and 6 tablespoons of neutral oil (rapeseed) in a pan. Don’t panic, because we will drain them afterwards !

Let it fry while stirring constantly.

Drain in a small colander over a container.

You can put them in a small blender, or crush them roughly in a mortar.

Add the powdered sugar and cinnamon.

Mix well and set aside.

For the dough: put all the ingredients in a container.

Just whip it up!

For this recipe, we use an iron. By typing doughnut iron on google, we find plenty. Pour 3cm of oil in a pan. The iron must be submerged.

Remove excess oil on a paper towel.

Dip the iron partially into the dough. You don’t want the dough to go over the pattern. Here on the picture, I am at my best! Leave the iron in the dough for 3 seconds.