M’hanncha

Name: M’hanncha
Yield: Serves Eight to Ten
Cuisine: Tunisian
Ingredients: ground cinnamon; icing (confectioners’) sugar; 1 egg yolk; 3–4 sheets filo pastry; 15 ml/1 tbsp orange flower water; 5–10 ml/1–2 tsp ground cinnamon; 115 g/4 oz/½ cup butter, softened, plus 20g/¾oz for cooking nuts; 115 g/4 oz/⅔ cup caster (superfine) sugar; 50 g/2 oz/½ cup icing (confectioners’) sugar; 300 g/11 oz/2¾ cups ground almonds; 115 g/4 oz/1 cup blanched almonds

Preparation info

Serves
Eight to Ten

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Complete Guide to Traditional Jewish Cooking

By Marlena Spieler

Published 2016

About

This crisp-crusted, perfumed, almond-filled pastry is a favourite of Sephardic Jews from Tunisia and, especially, Morocco. Enjoy it with a small cup of mint tea.

Ingredients

115 g/4 oz/1 cup blanched almonds
300

Africa
Morocco
Tunisia
Cake
Dessert
Vegetarian
Mediterranean

Method

Fry the blanched almonds in a little butter until golden brown, then pound them using a pestle and mortar until they resemble coarse breadcrumbs.
Place the nuts in a bowl and add the ground almonds, icing sugar, caster sugar, butter, cinnamon and orange flower water. Use your hands to form the mixture into a smooth paste. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for