Kahk (Egyptian Shortbread). Melt butter and mix with vegetable oil in a bowl.. This Middle Eastern pastry is a crumbly shortbread cookie stuffed with dates and honey and topped with powdered sugar. A sweet and buttery treat, kahk is best enjoyed with chai or espresso. Egyptian Shortbread كحك Kahk Kahk represents a time of celebration. These biscuits are made at Christmas and Easter time and Eid el-fitr which is the feast after Ramadan (when Muslims fast from Sunrise to Sunset for a month).

We also cook up a storm for breakfast on the first day of Eid. Which usually starts with savoury like eggs, falafel, cheeses etc. and ends with a mouth watering dessert called 'KAHK' the Egyptian version of shortbread cookies, which is what I have here ready for you. Kahk is a middle eastern dessert that originated in Egypt as far back as the time of the Pharoahs. You can have Kahk (Egyptian Shortbread) using 7 ingredients and 11 steps. Here is how you cook it.

Ingredients of Kahk (Egyptian Shortbread)

Prepare 2/3 of cups- Unsalted butter.
Prepare 1/2 cup of vegetable oil.
You need 5 1/2 cups of All purpose flour.
You need 1 1/2 tsp of Instant yeast.
Prepare 1 tsp of Sugar.
Prepare 150 ml of water - lukewarm.
You need of Powdered sugar.

There are tombs engraved with depictions of women making Kahk. They are baked in a round shape to mimick the shape of the sun. Perfected recipe for Egyptian, bakery-style Ghorayeba cookies! Delicate, fine-textured, smooth and melts-in-the-mouth delicious.

Kahk (Egyptian Shortbread) step by step

Melt butter and mix with vegetable oil in a bowl..
In a separate large bowl, add the flour and salt and mix. Create a well in the centre..
Take your warm water, yeast and sugar and combine leaving the yeast to active (which is when you see foams being formed at the top surface of the water)This may take 10-15 mins..
In the well created previously, add in the yeast mixture and the butter + oil mixture and combine very well..
Knead the dough for about 5-10 until it all comes together and allow to rest for about an hour..
Preheat your oven to 160 C degrees..
Shape the dough into balls then flatten them out slightly. Note**** these cookies don't spread out as much as you would think and so I would advise you to shape the cookies according to the size you want them to be after they are cooked.. They do however rise in the oven as they cook..
Place them into your tray, and using a fork create holes which will allow the powdered sugar to sit in the cookies once baked and served..
Bake in preheated oven for about 15 mins. At this point they would have only cooked from the inside... So the next thing you want to do is increase the temperature to 200C degrees and cooked them for about 5-10 mins or until golden brown from the top..
Finally after they are cooked, cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar just before serving..
With this recipe, the shortbread/cookie itself only contain 1 tsp of sugar, which means that you can control how much sugar you want when serving... Which is for sure one of the things I love about these cookies..

Why is it that the simplest things are always the hardest to get right? It was in his time that the first bakery was established devoted specifically to the making of kahk, called dar al-fitra, where a piece of kahk was the size of a loaf of bread. Things have gone downhill ever since and we've been getting nuts and gooey honey filling instead of gold coins, but whatever…they're still great! Some may describe Ghoryebah as shortbread cookies. But, these Egyptian butter cookies have a less dense and far softer texture-let me think-almost like velvet, if the word "velvet" could ever be used to describe a cookie.