Iz Sunday. Unleash Your Cookie Monster! Gazelle Horns/Semolina Cookies 🌞

Last edited Sun Aug 10, 2025, 05:34 PM - Edit history (1)

Gazelles’ Horns



Gazelles’ horns, the famous crescent-shaped cakes of Morocco, show up
everywhere, in all the sweet shops and bakeries, and they are of varying quality:
sometimes too hard or brittle, sometimes too thick. This recipe produces the
thinnest and most tender pastry, and, to my taste, a perfect not-too-sweet almond
paste, made with confectioners’ sugar.

My latest version is much easier to make than the version I published in my
earlier cookbook, but the results are just as delicious. The food processor
produces the proper dough in 40 seconds, instead of the 20-minute kneading
traditionally required. Then you stretch the silky and elastic dough into paper=
thin skins in which to wrap the almond paste.

Unlike most recipes for gazelles’ horns, mine does not include an egg in the
pastry, which I believe is the reason it is superior.

Makes 14 to 16 pastries

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon (6 ounces) all-purpose flour
Pinch of fine salt
½ tablespoon clarified butter, melted, plus 3 tablespoons butter, at room
temperature
8 ounces whole almonds
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
Butter for greasing the baking sheet
Flour for dusting
1 tablespoon orange flower water or rose water

1. Combine the flour, salt, and melted butter in a food processor. With the
machine on, add ½ cup lukewarm water and process for 20 seconds. Let
the dough relax for 10 minutes, then cover and process again for 20
seconds.

2. Divide the dough in half and let rest for at least 30 minutes, while you
prepare the almond filling.

3. Blanch, grind, and flavor the almonds as directed in the recipe for “The
Snake”, using the confectioners’ sugar and soft butter; omit the gum
arabic and granulated sugar. Cover the almond paste and chill. (You can
make this a few days in advance.)

4. Divide the almond paste in half, then divide one half into 7 or 8 equal
parts. Roll 1 part between your palms to make a sausage shape 2 inches
long, thicker in the center and tapered at the ends. Repeat with the
remaining parts, then repeat with the remaining almond paste. Cover and
keep chilled.

5. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly butter a baking sheet.

6. On a lightly floured board, roll out one half the dough to a large thin
rectangle (keep the other half under a kitchen towel). If the dough is
sticky, roll out on parchment paper or waxed paper. Remove the paper,
dip the cookie cutter into flour, and cut out 7 or 8 rounds, dipping in flour
between each cutting.

7. Remove half the cylinders of almond paste from the refrigerator. Roll out
1 circle of dough to a 4-or 5-inch-by-2-inch rectangle. Place an almond
paste cylinder about 1 inch up from the bottom of the rectangle. Stretch
the piece of dough below the paste as thin as possible and fold it over the
paste to cover it completely. Press the dough together to seal. With a
pastry wheel, cut around the mound. Repeat with the remaining dough
and almond paste.

8. Pick up each horn and, pressing lightly with the second and third finger
and thumb of each hand, shape it into a crescent. Prick each horn twice
with a needle, to prevent puffing and splitting, and place on the buttered
baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until very pale gold in color.
(Do not allow the crescents to brown, or they will harden. The crust
should be rather soft; they will crisp slightly upon cooling.) Immediately
brush each horn under and over with orange flower or rose water. Cool
and serve piled high on a serving plate.

Variation:
Roll the horns in confectioners’ sugar after brushing with the orange
flower or rose water. If you plan to present them this way, reduce the
sugar in the almond paste to 7 tablespoons.

OOoops! from "The Food of Morocco"

***************************************************************************************************

Semolina Cookies



These lovely light cookies, the size of half-dollars and sugar-dipped, are made
with semolina flour, which endows them with a marvelous taste and texture.
When I was learning to make these cookies, I followed the lead of all the
Moroccan ladies in their kitchen. Whatever they did, I followed, but when it
came time to form the mounds, with their perfectly shaped domes, I just couldn’t
seem to get them right. No matter what I did, the dough kept sticking to my
palms. The Moroccan cooks used a complicated rolling, clutching, squeezing,
and back-and-forth motion that produced perfectly smooth balls and left their
hands clean of dough. They then transferred the dough to their other palm,
tapped the balls lightly, and produced one-inch disks with slightly raised domes
that were smoother and much more celestial than mine. But in the end, mine
tasted as good as theirs. I decided to think of them as a “rustic variation.”

Makes 3½ dozen cookies

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus soft butter for greasing the baking sheets
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 large fresh free-range eggs
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 2/3 cups pasta flour (semolina)
1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
1/8 teaspoon fine salt
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Melt the butter in the oil in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and
set aside.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and 12/3 cups of the confectioners’
sugar together in a large bowl until soft and fluffy. Add the butter-oil
mixture and beat a few seconds longer. Using a spatula, fold in the pasta
flour, baking powder, salt, and vanilla. Blend well.

3. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

4. Prepare the baking sheets by smearing them with dabs of butter. Place the
remaining 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar in a flat dish. Form the cookies by
pinching off walnut-sized balls of dough and rolling them between your
palms until a perfect sphere is formed. (Since the dough is very sticky,
it’s a good idea to moisten your hands from time to time.) Flatten each
sphere slightly, dip one side into the confectioners’ sugar, and arrange on
a buttered baking sheet.

5. Bake one sheet at a time on the middle shelf of the oven for 15 to 18
minutes. When they are done, the cookies will have expanded and
crisscross breaks will have appeared on their tops. Allow to cool on a
rack and crisp before storing.

NOTE TO THE COOK:
The cookies will keep for at least a month in an airtight tin container.

OOoops! from "The Food of Morocco"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11411970-the-food-of-morocco

Bakers and eaters enjoy!