[Sca-cooks] Maamoul molds

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Eduardo wrote:
>Any suggestions on good shapes etc?
>Here are some links that I found.
>
>http://store.gourmetsleuth.com/mamoul-molds-set-of-3-P24.aspx
>http://store.gourmetsleuth.com/mamoul-mold-jumbo-P864.aspx
>http://www.sahadifinefoods.com/product573_lastcat19.ihtml
>http://www.shopkamal.com/servlet/the-107/Mamoul-Cookie-Mold-dsh-Hand-Crafted/Detail

Locally (San Francisco Bay Area) i find molds with round made either 
of wood or of plastic. According to your first link, assuming it is 
accurate and not just... uh... marketing, there are different shapes 
for different fillings. I confess i didn't pay attention to whether 
the local ones were deep sided (as the first in the picture) or domed 
(like the third one in the photo).

There is an SCA period recipe similar to mamoul with a different 
name. Here is the one from Charles Perry's translation of 
al-Baghdadi's cook book direct from the Arabic manuscript (that 
little PPC booklet):

Pp. 102-103
The way to make urnin is to put three ounces of fresh sesame oil in a 
pound of flour (sc. with a little water). Then make it into cakes, 
and put finely pounded spiced almonds, pistachios, and sugar in the 
middle of them. Gather them and stamp them; let there be a mould for 
them like a box. Bake them in a brick oven. Some people take the 
necessary amount of dates, remove their seeds, knead them with a 
little rose-water, sesame seed, and toasted poppy seed, and put it 
inside them.

[note that the brick oven is not the tannur]

There is another recipe in the 14th c. "Book of the Description of 
Familiar Foods", translated by Charles Perry and included in 
"Medieval Arab Cookery". It is not handy at the moment. Since 
"Familiar Foods" includes al-Baghdadi's recipes, i suspect the recipe 
is quite similar. I will look for it later to verify.

I made a variation for a Middle Eastern feast i prepared for 150 at a 
West Kingdom camping event (by myself i cooked and froze many of the 
dishes ahead of time). Since making 150 urnin would take an awful lot 
of time -- given that, due to a misunderstanding, i had only about a 
week to create, shop, and cook -- we layered the dough in the bottom 
of rectangular pans (like those for lasagna), spread the date 
filling, and topped with more dough. Then baked until only very 
lightly golden, and sliced into bars. The recipe was basically period 
(i added fine grain semolina), although the preparation was not.
-- 
Urtatim [that's err-tah-TEEM]
the persona formerly known as Anahita