Turkish Gifts

A great spice for those in the know

Every July when my wife Leslie returns from her annual trip to her AFS "Family" in Izmir, Turkey, I thrill to the homecoming. Ten or so days without her is tough, and it's wonderful when she's back. Besides, she always brings gifts.

The Inci family insists on sending presents, "For letting them have her." These are inevitably food products, which I unpack, admire, and puzzle over for months.

This past summer Leslie brought home what I'd requested: two kilos of mastic, a spicy sap indigenous to the Izmir area as well as Chios, Greece. However, her Turkish "Niece" Elif insisted on buying additional spices. There were more than a dozen cellophane packets in Elif's gift basket. Most were hot peppers, which she had rated with a star system from "1=Hot" to "4=Poison!", but one packet was labeled "Mahlep for cookies." 

I’ve been using the hot peppers since August, working my way up through the stars. Meanwhile the mahlep has been untouched, waiting for the right moment. 

That right moment came this week. I'd become bored with cookies, and was about to shift focus to other micro-desserts (pie, anyone? Cheesecake?) when that box of Turkish spices beckoned. Deciding not to Google "Mahlep" until after a taste-test, I snipped open the cellophane and took a whiff. Eastern aromas tingled my nose - vague hints of cinnamon, tree bark, fruits and nuts. I dipped a finger in and sampled. The bark taste was pungent, and fruitiness swam through the background. Then came a potent bitterness. "What IS this stuff?" I wondered. Rather than seek an actual answer I decided to experiment.

I jotted down "partner flavors" - tastes I sensed would go well with the mahlep: walnuts, sassafras, heavy cream. Next I worked on the ratio of fats to sugar to flour. I wanted a soft, chewy cookie, something on the decadent side. I decided on 1 part butter, 1.5 parts sugar and 2 parts flour. The flour would be ivory teff, which has a spicy flavor and would provide a final, enhancing note.

Creaming butter and sugar, I meditated on the aromas. An egg yolk would add richness, I decided, and the flour couldn't be teff alone - too gritty, and a bit overwhelming (teff by itself can have a fishy taste). As is the case with most gluten-free sweets I’d have to ratio in some starches - potato and modified tapioca starch would do. Also, some type of extract could help. But not vanilla - every cookie uses vanilla. I blindly reached into the spice drawer --- and came up with anise. 

The dough came together nicely and the raw flavors (I grew up licking beaters and have never stopped!) were rewarding. I rolled balls and flattened them, my thoughts on oven time. And then - foolishness: I'd neglected to cap the anise bottle and a false move sent it splashing across the countertop. Instantly the whole apartment reeked of Ouzo, and I was mentally in Crete in the 1970's, battling a hangover on the beach. 

A quick mop-up eliminated the spill but not the scent. I sent the cookies into the oven and pulled them 12 minutes later, but by now my senses were so ouzo-saturated the cloying liquor was all I could think about. Fortunately Leslie and I had theatre tickets; I grabbed a barely-cooled cookie and stuffed it into my mouth on the way out the door.

Half-eaten and Christmas-ready

Wow! It was 'way too spicy and not nearly nutty enough, but pretty damned good. Once I got past the feeling it'd been scraped from the floor of a taverna, that is.

I didn't get around to Googling "Mahlep" until the next day. Turns out it is the ground-up heart of St. Lucie cherry pits, and is a spice more widely used in Greece than elsewhere. So the anise/ouzo taste was not so far off. I checked to be sure that you, my readers, could find it in the USA (you can - click here), then went back to the drawing board to make an even better cookie.

My original plan had produced the right balance of chew and crisp (heavy on the former, lean on the latter), but the results, though overpowering, lacked something. Deciding to back down on spiciness while ramping up richness, I came up with a walnut-laden, brown sugar version.

Taste-testing around this house yielded the consensus that these wren’t sweet enough. I nonetheless decided to include the recipe because the cookies have a gingerbread-y appeal. Also, they sat on the kitchen counter uncovered for 48 hours at relative humidity 10% and did not dry out.

Next I stepped far out of bounds and went all out for tree products: sassafras root, pignoli nuts and hickory-smoked salt all feature in my final recipe. These are adult cookies - not cloying enough to keep the kids happy, and salty in that pungent way you’ll recognize from caviar. 

(please read the link on sassafras before digging up roots and using them. Harvesting sassafras roots was a spring ritual in my family even after research surfaced that linked them to liver damage and cancer. Perhaps the way we all escaped was by using only the thinnest layer of outer root cambium, but I have no proof that this is safe. You, my readers, should be aware of the hazards.)

It’ll take some doing to track down all these ingredients, but I think it will be worth your time. Mahleb is useful in many sweets, and ivory teff is a great flour to have on hand. And sassafras ... well, you’ll meet sassafras again when I do get to cheesecakes. The next entry.

Dark Mahlep Cookies - micro-recipe

Makes 6, 2.5” X 3/8” cookies

Ingredients

45 grams dark brown sugar

32 grams dark teff flour

20 grams unsalted butter at @ 65 F

20 grams walnuts, toasted and chopped fine

18 grams potato starch

10 grams coconut oil at room temperature

10 grams shredded coconut

5 grams Expandex modified tapioca starch

3 grams mahlep

1.5 grams xanthan gum

1 yolk, medium egg

1 TBLSP heavy cream

@ 1/8 tsp sassafras root (optional)

1 drop anise extract

Tiny pinch salt

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350. Cut a half-sheet of parchment in half and place on a cookie rack.

Place the scrap of sassafras root in a mortar and pestle and pound into powder. Add cream and stir well, then set aside. 

Heat a heavy skillet over high flame. Toss the walnuts in it until they begin to darken and emit a pleasing, smoky aroma. Remove from heat and immediately drop into ceramic bowl (to prevent their continued toasting). When cool, chop fine.

In a medium bowl, blend teff flour, potato starch, Expandex, mahlep, xanthan gum and salt. Stir to blend well.

Separate the egg, leaving the yolk in a small bowl.

Combine the walnuts and coconut in a small bowl.

In a small bowl, with an electric mixer, cream butter and coconut oil using medium speed until white-ish and fluffy - about 1 minute. Add sugar and cream again until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add anise and whip to combine. Add cream and sassafras and whip to combine. Add egg yolk and whip to combine. 

Turn mixer off, add flour blend, then beat on low speed until well combined. Add nuts and combine.

Form dough into a ball. Pinch off six equal sections, roll into balls and place on the parchment, leaving at least 2” between each ball. Flatten each ball to @ 1/2 inch, pressing in tine marks if you wish.

Bake for 14 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet half-way through. Remove to a cooling rack, sliding parchment from sheet onto rack. Allow to cool thoroughly before eating.

Light Mahlep cookies, micro-recipe

Makes 6, 2.5” X 3/8” cookies

Ingredients:

6o grams granulated sugar

40 grams unsalted butter at 65 F

32 grams ivory teff flour

20 grams pignoli nuts

18 grams potato starch

10 grams Expandex modified tapioca starch

5 grams mahlep

1.5 grams xanthan gum

1 medium egg yolk

1 TBLSP heavy cream

1/8 tsp (+/-) sassafras root (optional)

3 drops anise extract

Tiny pinch salt

Several pinches coarse, hickory-smoked salt

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut a 1/2 sheet of parchment into two, and place one of the sheets on a cookie sheet.

Place the scrap of sassafras root in a mortar and pestle and pound into powder. Add cream and stir well. Place into a small prep bowl and set aside. 

Place the pignoli nuts into the mortar and pestle and pound to a fine pulp. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, blend teff flour, potato starch, Expandex, mahlep, xanthan gum and salt. Stir to blend well.

Separate the egg, leaving the yolk in a small bowl.

In a small bowl, with an electric mixer, cream butter using medium speed - about 1 minute. Add sugar, and cream again until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add anise and whip to combine. Add cream and sassafras and whip to combine. Add egg yolk and whip to combine. 

Turn mixer off, add flour blend, then beat on low speed until well combined. Add pignoli paste and combine.

Form dough into a ball. Pinch off six equal sections, roll into balls and place on the parchment, leaving at least 2” between each ball. Flatten each ball to @ 1/2 inch, pressing in tine marks if you wish. Sprinkle a pinch of hickory smoked salt onto the top of each cookie and press gently into the surface. 

Bake for 14 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet half-way through. Remove to a cooling rack, sliding parchment from sheet onto rack. Allow to cool thoroughly before eating.