Ghorayebah
Ghorayebah – Melt in the mouth shortbread biscuits
Ghorayebah are beautiful bite-size biscuits that are like individual shortbreads, coated in a dusting of icing sugar. They do literally melt in your mouth.
It’s lovely to be able to offer these lovely little biscuits when you serve mint tea in the afternoon when friends call. They are also very popular gifts when you call on friends and family during the Islamic festival of Eid , or at any time come to think of it!
These ingredients make about 25 of these delightful melt in the mouth shortbread biscuits; ghorayebah.
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter at room temperature
- 2 cups plain flour
- ½ cup icing sugar
- 1tsp vanilla essence
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ cup icing sugar for sprinkling over the cooked biscuits
Method
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.
Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and pale
Put the icing sugar, butter & vanilla essence into a large mixing bowl and beat them together. This incorporates air into the mixture.
Continue beating until they become fluffy pale and smooth.
Sift in the flour and add the dry ingredients
Sift the flour and the baking powder into the creamed butter. Fold in the dry ingredients with a metal spoon.
Bring the dough together
The dough should now be fairly dry but should just hold together when rolled.
Roll into balls
When the mixture is thoroughly combined, roll the dough into balls the size of large marbles. Place the balls on a baking tray lined with parchment paper or baking paper allowing a little space between each.
Pop your ghorayebah into the fridge for 20 minutes
Put them into the fridge for about 20 minutes before baking to allow them to rest and firm up a little.
Bake for just 8 minutes
Bake for just 8 minutes, by this time they should be firm but still pale in colour – don’t allow them to brown. They should remain light and elegant.
Leave your ghorayebah in the oven to cool
Turn off the heat from the oven but leave the ghoreyabah in the oven as it cools down to allow them to firm up a little.
When they are cool, remove the ghoreyabeh from the oven and dust them with a little icing sugar from a sieve.
Dust your ghorayebah with a little icing sugar
Just before serving dust them once again with a little more icing sugar.
Alternative little extras for your Ghorayebah
If you choose, you could add a few drops of rose water to the biscuit mix to give a beautifully subtle floral fragrance to your biscuits and you could add a few rose petals when you dust them with icing sugar which can look very delicate. This is especially effective when giving them as a gift.
Another alternative would be to add a little crushed cardamom seed to the icing sugar.
These are very popular and tend to be eaten very quickly but for periods such as Eid when you may expect many visitors they can be made in bigger batches and stored in airtight containers where they can be stored for several days.