Buttery Baku biscuits (qorabiyya)

Buttery Baku biscuits (Bakı qorabiyyəsi) are sold in most cake shops in the Azerbaijani capital, but the home-made biscuits are even tastier. News.Az is grateful to Gullu Cahangir for allowing us to use her Baku biscuits recipe, taken from her informative website Azerifood.com.

Preparation time: 30 mins
Cooking time: 10 mins
Serves: makes around 80 biscuits

Ingredients

• 600 g/1 lb 8 oz wheat flour
• 350 g/14 oz butter
• 150 g/6 oz caster sugar
• white of one egg
• jam

Preparation

• Cream the butter and sugar until smooth.
• Carefully beat in the egg white.
• Sieve the flour into the mixture and beat into a smooth dough. (It feels like plasticine that you’ve been holding for a long time.)
• Line and grease a baking tray.
• Spoon the dough into a piping bag fitted with a large nozzle.
• Squeeze out the dough into rosettes, spacing them well apart on the baking tray.
• Put a drop of jam in the centre of each biscuit. Use a brightly coloured jam that will contrast with the colour of the biscuit – strawberry, raspberry, red cherry and apricot are all suitable.
• Bake in a hot oven, preheated to 250C/475F/Gas 9.
• Bake for around 10 minutes. The biscuits cook quickly so keep your eye on the oven.
• Grind butter with sugar powder, add egg albumen, mix, put flour and knead pastry. Split pastry into 25-28 gr flower and stick – shaped pieces in the centre with stuffing made of fruit paste and sugar powder. 2-2,5 gr of stuffing per a cake. Bake at 250-270C.