Egyptian Date Crescents #CreativeCookieExchange

These melt-in-your-mouth shortbread crescents are filled with sweet and sticky dates then covered in powdered sugar. 

My Creative Cookie Exchange group is celebrating spring around the world today, with recipes for Easter, Purim, Passover and more. Searching online for cookie recipes is often a rabbit hole of no return, but I managed come back this time with these Egyptian date crescents that the author said she and her mother always made for her father for Easter.  In fact, Easter is celebrated in a big way in Egypt, which surprised me when we lived in Cairo. The Coptic Christians are a minority, but they are a very vocal and visible influence in life there, where they live side by side, for the most part quite peaceably, with their Muslim neighbors.

Adapted from What She’s Having.

Ingredients - makes 2 dozen cookies
7 oz or 200g whole dates
2 cups or 250g flour
1 cup or 225g  butter at room temp, cut into pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup or 60ml cold milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup or 94g powdered sugar

Method
In a small bowl, cover the dates with hot but not boiling water and set aside.

Using a pastry blender to combine the butter and flour and salt until they form large crumbles and there are no large pieces of butter.

Add the vanilla to the milk. Then add the milk to the butter and flour.

Stir until well combined. The dough is going to be quite sticky. If you live in a warm climate, wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes. Don’t leave it too long or the butter will stiffen up and the dough will no longer be pliable.

Drain the dates and remove the pits and any little stemmy bits on the one end.

Use a sharp knife to chop the dates finely. Use the edge of the knife to make a square out of the date paste and cut it into 24 pieces.

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C and prepare two cookie sheets by lining them with baking parchment or silicone liners.

Cut the dough into 24 squares.

Taking one square at a time, form it into a ball.

Press the center of the ball down to create an indent and press it out into an oval. Place one piece of the dates into the middle.

Close the dough up over the dates.

Roll the dough gently between your hand to lengthen it. Bend into a crescent.

Place on your prepared cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the bottom of the cookies are just golden. Let cool completely.

Roll in icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Check out all the lovely spring cookies we are sharing today!

• Chocolate Candy Coconut Cookies from Magnolia Days
• Easter Biscuits from Baking in Pyjamas
• Easter Egg Cookies from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Egyptian Date Crescents from Food Lust People Love
• Lemon Hamantaschen from Spiceroots
• Lemon Meltaway Cookies from A Baker's House
• Ma'amoul – Date Stuffed Cookies from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Malt M&M's Easter Cookies from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
• Maltese Figolli Cookies from Upstate Rambling
• Peach and Pistachio Frangiapane Hamantaschen from Live Bake Love
• Persian Chickpea Cookies (Nan e Nokhodchi) from Flours and Frostings
• Taralli Dolci di Pasqua (Southern Italian Easter Cookies) from The Spiced Life
• Zesty Citrus Bar Cookies from 2 Cookin' Mamas

Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life, this month with technical assistance from Anshie of Spiceroots. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life). We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

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Peach Blueberry Muffins #MuffinMonday

There is always a certain tone to his voice.  A little excited, a tad bit nervous even.  “Guess what?”  And I give him a long, penetrating look.  And I know.  And a shiver of anticipation runs up my own spine.  “Where to this time and what’s the timeframe?”  So much planning to do, starting with how and when to tell our daughters.  It’s the WE-have-been-transferred conversation.  Because when you are an expat family, it’s not just the worker that is being transferred, we are all moving on.  As with most things in life, there is bad and there is good.  Bad is leaving behind the home you know, the friends and family you love, the community you’ve become an integral part of, where people know you and love you and you can contribute.  Good is a fresh start with new places to explore, sometimes just within yourself.  Can I do this again?  Can I make a new place home, find new friends, fit in again, have fun exploring and be happy?

When my husband found out about our second to last move, the talk came as a phone call.  “Guess what?”  And I could hear the tone.  “Will I like it?” was my first question.  “I think so,” he responded, “It’s Cairo!”  And he was right.  “I’ve always wanted to go to Cairo,” I responded, “but not as a tourist.”  I just had the feeling that Egypt was the kind of place that wouldn’t let a mere tourist in.  Sure, you could see the sights and sites, but to get the deep down feeling for the place and people, it wouldn’t do to scratch the surface with a tour guide.

Truth is, I’m not a very good tourist.  I’m not crazy about tour guides and seeing all the hot spots.  I want to go to the local market and buy new ingredients and cook the food.  I want to sit in a corner café and watch the people go by and sip whatever the locals are drinking.  I want to immerse myself and make friends from all over.  I want to learn about the culture and the people.  I want greet the folks at my nearby grocery store and get to know them.  I want to become a familiar friendly face to them as well.

All of this is a very long way around telling you that Egypt became that home, despite our short time there.  In a little less than a year, I made friends.  I volunteered at the community center.  I visited orphanages and charity clinics.  In short, from my very first impressions, I fell in love with the people, Muslim and Christian alike, for their warm hearts and expansive giving natures.  Everything is done in wide-open gestures.  Normal conversations are often shouted, which I must admit I found alarming at first.  But I soon realized that the raised voices were normal in that culture and didn’t mean animosity or even anger.  Just enthusiasm.  Such was the elated optimism before the first-ever democratic election that I almost cannot bear to watch the news right now.  And all I can do is pray.  For peace, for reconciliation, for wisdom, for the leaders of Egypt and the world to find a quick resolution to the strife.  As lovely as Dubai is, a big part of me wishes I were still in Cairo, peacefully baking my muffins every Thursday, in readiness for the Muffin Monday post, and, as I always did, sending them home with my sweetheart housekeeper, Reda, and wishing her and her family a restful weekend.

If you haven’t met my fellow blogger and friend, Marilyn of Communicating Across Boundaries, she is in my blog roll of Favorite Blogs up there in the left column, but, since Egypt’s on my mind, I’d like to share her post from yesterday: Egypt – a Call to Prayer.  Marilyn grew up as an expat child, lived in Cairo as an adult and also has a heart for Egypt.  If you are the praying sort, they can use all the prayers they can get right now.   Or you could just bake muffins for someone you love.  Because this world could use more love in the form of muffins.

Ingredients
1 medium peach
3 oz or 1/2 cup or 85g blueberries
1 3/4 cups or 220g flour
3/4 cup or 170g sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 egg
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup or 60ml canola oil

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin tin by greasing it or lining it with muffin papers.

Cut the peach in half and remove the pit.  Cut 12 thin slices out of one half, set them aside for garnish, and then chop the rest of the peach in small chunks.  Set aside 12 blueberries as well for garnish.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together your eggs, milk, vanilla and oil.

Pour your wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until they are just combined.  There should be some dry flour still showing.  Don't worry about how dry this looks.  The juicy peaches will make up for that while baking.

Fold in the peach pieces and blueberries.

Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups.

Top each muffin with a peach slice and a blueberry.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the muffins are golden and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove the muffins from the pan and cool further on a wire rack.

Enjoy!