Milk cookies - kaak bi haleeb

As you can probably tell by the lack of posts, I've been struggling a bit with finding the time to blog. I miss my blog and my readers, and I'm sorry for leaving you that long!! Between the family and the friends, I'm hardly sleeping... but I feel GREAT and HAPPY.

I'll share with you in this post, some of the pictures I took on a journey we spent in wadi kadisha (kadisha valley). Kadisha is one of the deepest valleys in Lebanon, it's indeed a whole world apart; a deep gorge carved by the Kadisha river whose source is in the kadisha grotto at the foot of the Cedars. 



Wadi kadisha means the "Holy Valley". Filled with caves and rock shelters inhabited from the third millennium B.C. to the Roman period, the valley is scattered with cave chapels, hermitages and monasteries cut from rock. Since the Early Middle Ages generations of monks, hermits, ascetics and anchorites found asylum here.



Ingredients:
1 kg flour
200 g butter, melted
2 cups milk
400 g sugar
1 ½ tsp mastica
2 tsp mahlab
1 tbsp orange blossom water
1 tbsp rosewater
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp yeast
½ tbsp ground nutmeg

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together except the milk.

Gradually add in the milk and knead well until you form a smooth dough. Leave the dough to rest for at least 6 hours in a warm place.

Divide the dough into small balls and then roll each ball into a long thin cylinder and stick the ends together forming ring.

Transfer the dough rings on trays and bake in the oven on the middle rack for 20 mins at 350ºF (180ºC).



kaak au lait

Ingrédients:
1 kg farine
200 g beurre, fondu
0.5 litre de lait
400 g de sucre
1 ½ càc mastic
2 càc mahlab
1 càs d'eau de fleurs d'oranger
1 càs d'eau de rose
1 càs de levure chimique
1 càs de levure boulangere
½ càs de noix de muscade

Dans un grand saladier, mélangez tous les ingrédients sauf le lait.

Graduellement, versez le lait et pétrissez pour former une boule homogène. Laissez-la reposer environ 6 heures.

Divisez la pâte en de petites boules, roulez-la en forme d'un cylindre puis soudez la pâte en formant des anneaux.

Transférez les kaaks sur une plaque à patisserie et enfournez-les pendant 20 mn à 180ºC.