Algerian cakes Mkhabez
Based on my French friend Audrey’s recipe
Ingredients for 20-24 cakes:
300 g of almond powder
150 g of icing sugar
1 sachet of vanilla sugar
Grated lemon zest
1 egg
1 egg yolk
For the icing:
2 egg whites
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of oil
2 tablespoons of milk
2 tablespoons of orange blossom water
Icing sugar, more than 500 g
Sugar figurines for decoration (my children made marzipan roses)
Preparation:
In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients from the 1st group above (including the lemon zest). Make a dough by adding the egg and, if necessary, the egg yolk. Almonds contain fat and the more we knead, the more fat is released which helps to obtain a compact mass.
Roll out the dough with a rolling pin on baking paper aiming for a thickness of 1.5 cm (I have made it thinner, around 1 cm). Using a cookie cutter, cut out biscuits with a diameter of about 5-6 cm. Place the biscuits on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake at 160°C until lightly golden. Let cool on rack.
Meanwhile, prepare the icing. Mix all the liquid ingredients from the second group. Whisk by hand. Gradually add the sifted icing sugar and mix well after each portion. The icing is of the required texture, when lifting a little with a spatula, the dripping down quantity is interrupted.
Dip the cooled cakes one by one in the icing, top side down (without covering the bottom) and place them on a rack to drain. Decorate the cakes to taste (they are usually decorated with sugar paste flowers) and let the icing dry.
Store the Mkhabez in a cookie jar. If eaten immediately after preparation, they are crunchy, and when they come out of the jar, they are soft.