Magrood

The king of all Libyan sweets or desserts is Magrood, which is prepared from Semolina, dates, syrup, and honey. If you are a coffee fanatic, Magrood will make it even more luxurious for you. There are numerous ways to prepare Magrood, however the traditional method contains no measurements. Yes, they keep adding this and that until they have a dough that can be held in their hands. However, there is a fixed measurement resulting in a 95 percent fixed formula, but a step or two must be done while mixing and cannot be 100% measured!

Ingredients:

Dough

• 3 cups semolina
• 1 cup flour
• ½ tsp. ammonium chloride
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• ¾ cup Geranium water
• ¾ cup water

Date filling

• 150g date chopped
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 Tbsp. sesame
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Honey syrup

• 2 cups thick sugar syrup
• 1 cup pure honey

Instruction:

1.Dough

• Mix together dry ingredients (semolina, flour and ammonium chloride) then add olive oil and mix till well combined, add half the amount of vegetable oil and mix, grab some of the dough your hands and throw it up a few times and see if it forms a ball or not, if it is still crumbly they add more oil till you get it to form a ball.
• Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest overnight. The next day, mix water and Geranium water in a jug, start adding it to the dough gradually and knead it till you get a soft playable dosugh.

2.Date filling

• Put dates, oil, sesame and cinnamon in a saucepan over medium heat and stir using a wooden spoon till the dates start to soften and all well combined to form a date paste or a dough.
• Set aside and let it cool down then roll it out to ½ cm thick.

3.Final

• Pre-heat the oven to 160C, rack in the middle.
• Take some of the magrood dough and roll it out to 2.5 cm thick, make a hole along with it but don’t reach the bottom, put the date in it and close it well, now roll the whole thing a few times to make sure it securely closed and the date got into the center.
• Cut it about 2 fingers in thickness and start decorating them.
• Bake the magrood till golden brown.
• While the magrood is in the oven, mix both honey and sugar syrup in a deep saucepan and bring to boil, once the magrood is ready pour the honey on it while both are super hot, add the sprinkle and leave it in the honey oven night.