Maureen Abood Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes.” On each episode, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes.
My guest today is Maureen Abood. Maureen is a chef, cookbook author, and recipe developer. Through her writing and recipes, she's brought the flavors and spirit of Lebanese cooking and baking to kitchens around the world, weaving together heritage and family. She's the author of the cookbook, “Rose Water & Orange Blossoms,” and she joins me today to talk about her brand new book, “Lebanese Baking.” It's a heartfelt collection that celebrates the breads, pastries, and sweets of Lebanon. Each recipe reflects Maureen's connection to her roots, and her gift for storytelling, from crisp pastries and syrup-soaked cakes to savory breads and hand pies. Maureen tells me all about her childhood baking bread with her grandmother in the early morning hours, the special occasion Betty Crocker cakes her mother made her and her siblings, and her journey into the food world and cookbook writing. She also explains how this book was inspired by the baking chapter in her last book and how that chapter just kept expanding. She also walks me through her ma'amoul recipe, the traditional date-filled shortbread-like cookies that grace so many Lebanese tables during holidays and celebrations. Maureen shares the different types of fillings she uses when ma'amoul making, as well as her favorite and her expert tips for shaping the cookies in a variety of ways, from molds, to using a fork, to a tong-huller. If you know, you know. I loved talking with Maureen, so stay tuned for our chat. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.substack.com.
Today's episode is presented by Diamond of California Nuts, the century-old nut brand I couldn't bake without. If I open my freezer for you right now, because that's where I keep my nuts, you'd see my stock of diamond walnuts, almonds, and pecans ready for whatever I'm baking next. I love that they work with family-run farms that guarantee quality and commitment to the craft. Diamond also created the first ever ready-to-use nut pie crust, which just so happens to be gluten-free. If you haven't checked these out, you must. They're the best holiday baking shortcut. The first ingredient is nuts, nut flour or sugar, and you can really taste the difference. There's a pecan crust that would be amazing with your Thanksgiving pumpkin or apple pies, and a chocolate crust that I just want with everything. When you're at the grocery store, look for the nuts in the white bag with the Red Diamond logo in the baking aisle. That's your sign. You're getting premium quality nuts that bakers have trusted for generations. Visit diamondnuts.com to find a store nearest you and to explore their fan favorite recipes, like pecan sticky buns. Yum. Happy baking.
Peeps, did you hear the news? Jubilee New York 2026 is happening on Saturday, April 25th, at the Glasshouse in Manhattan, and early bird tickets are on sale now. Jubilee is Cherry Bombe's annual conference celebrating women and creatives in the world of food and drink. It'll be a beautiful day of connection and community, plus delicious bites and sips. You'll meet other thoughtful food folks and be inspired by the featured speakers, panelists, and more. I had such a great time at this past year's event, and I know next year's will somehow be bigger and better. Early bird tickets are on sale now through December 31st. If you're an official Bombesquad member or a paid Substack subscriber, be sure to use your discount code at checkout. You can find it in your inbox or on our Substack website. Head to cherrybombe.com for all the details. I hope to see you there.
Let's chat with today's guest. Maureen, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk ma'amoul with you and so much more.
Maureen Abood:
It's so nice to be with you, Jessie. Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'd love to start our conversation with an early baking memory of yours. Can you tell us about sitting on the kitchen counter in the early morning dark with Sito, your grandmother, helping her make the dough for a day of baking?
Maureen Abood:
Those days mean so much to me. And like any special memory, we want to keep evoking them. We want to keep bringing them back to mind. And the days that I had with Sito and my mother in the kitchen in the dark early morning meant a lot to me for a bunch of reasons. One of them is, I'm one of five kids, and this was my moment. This was my quiet time. I felt so special and sort of like my own person there with Sito. And she was one of these bakers who was so welcoming of the children. And she wanted me to get my hands in it. She wanted me to understand it. She wanted me to do it with her. I am so appreciative of that time.
Jessie Sheehan:
She let you pour in the water, I think. Was that one of your jobs?
Maureen Abood:
Yes, the hot water, it wasn't too hot, but it was warm water. She had her hands in a giant roasting pan. The speckled roasting pan was what we always used and what I still use to make my dough for sage bread, because we make such a big batch at once. She would get it all mounted in and she'd make a well in the middle, almost like you're making pasta dough, and she'd get the yeast going in there and she'd have me pour a little and a little more and a little more, and she's working this dough and I'm just mesmerized watching this. And then she has me put my hand in and get into it. And for a kid, slime is a big deal for a kid, so I loved that feeling. And I don't think I put my hands in dough to this day without thinking of that moment.
Jessie Sheehan:
You have said that you are a baker at heart and have always loved baking, and because your mom had five kids, you have four brothers and sisters, she kept you busy with kitchen projects such as baking. What kind of baking, if any, were you doing on your own, like in elementary school or in high school? Were you baking as a kid, or more doing it with Sito or with your mom?
Maureen Abood:
So empowering my feelings as a kid that I could go in the kitchen and have a project of my own doing. It was really, really fun, and I was doing these things on my own. My mother's Betty Crocker cookbook of the seventies was the Bible, and it was the book that I was looking at constantly and the cakes, the cookies and the candies, and particularly those three chapters. I would pick a cookie and bake it, and my mom was nearby and she would help out certainly with the oven and all of that, but she just let me go. And I really appreciate having had that enabling empowering opportunity, because I loved it so much, it was so much fun. My friends would come over and I would say, "Do you want to bake something?" That's what we did.
Jessie Sheehan:
Your mom also, to bring it back to those Betty Crocker cookbooks, your mom baked every special occasion cake in the Betty Crocker cookbooks to please her five children. Can you tell us if you remember one of the cakes that she made for you on a birthday that you loved from that book?
Maureen Abood:
The parade of cakes going through my mind right now as you're saying this, there was a cat cake. There was a man's shirt cake with a tie that was frosted this way. The real incredible feat was her house cake. She built the house out of cake. There's a whole map in the book on how to do this, and then the shingles on top of the cake were the wafers, the Necco wafers. This cake was just, we have a picture, a birthday picture, and many of these, of all five of us gathered around the kitchen table with this cake in the middle. And the huge eyes, and there's one of me with my ringlets coming down and I'm just like the happiest child you could ever want to see, and there's a cake in front of me that's pink with white piping and candles on top, and wow.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back. We're having a short snack break with California Prunes, who helped make this episode possible. I always have a stash of prunes in my pantry, because there's so much they can do. I love that prunes can satisfy your sweet tooth while being good for your gut, your heart, and even your bones. They contain dietary fiber and other nutrients to support good gut health, and vitamin K, copper, and antioxidants to support healthy bones. Wellness trends may come and go, but prunes aren't going anywhere, so why not chop up some prunes this weekend to fold into your favorite oatmeal cookie recipe? In mine, I combine them with M&Ms and potato chips for a cookie that has everything you'd ever want. It's chewy, crunchy, salty, sweet. Just talking about them makes me realize I need a cookie right now. Prunes are also a great natural sweetener in baking recipes. If you need any tips on sweetening with prunes, check out all the different ideas and recipes at the California Prunes website at californiaprunes.org. And I've got the inside scoop on a sweet contest our friends at California Prunes are hosting. Share your favorite recipe using California Prunes, whether it's an elaborate bake or a simple snack, for the chance to score hundreds of dollars in gift cards, kitchen gear, and swag. Just post your creation on Instagram or TikTok and tag @caprunes and @nocrumbsleft to enter. The contest runs from October 27th through November 17th, so get baking, get snacking, and good luck.
Cake lovers, you are going to love the next issue of Cherry Bombe magazine. I'm so excited to announce that the upcoming holiday issue of Cherry Bombe is all about cake. It's going to be packed with sweet stories, beautiful recipes, and heartfelt essays dedicated to our favorite dessert. Stay tuned for the cover reveal. I know it's going to be extra delicious. The issue will be out in early December, so head to cherrybombe.com to subscribe now and ensure it lands in your mailbox just in time for the holidays.
Now, back to our guest. Eventually, I think it may be sort of after you'd moved home, during graduate school, perhaps you slowly came up with the idea of going to culinary school. Was it around the same time that you took your first trip to Lebanon?
Maureen Abood:
I decided at a point that I really wanted to be a frontrunner writing about Lebanese cuisine. It really wasn't being done so much at this point in time. I started freelance writing where I could. I was living in Chicago, and knew that a trip to Lebanon was essential. Growing up Lebanese American '70s, '80s, this period in history was challenging in the Middle East, in Lebanon in particular, and not something my parents were excited about putting us into. So we hadn't taken that trip and it was all in my mind's eye. My imagination for this was just enormous. So as a writer, I was honing that skill and I knew I would get to Lebanon, but I also was in a job that gave me a lot, I learned so much, but I wanted to change my life.
I was going through my own experiences of loss and at a point I said, "Okay, Carpe Diem. I want to go to culinary school." I've talked to so many agents and writers and editors and everyone has said, "You don't have to go to culinary school to become a great food writer." I wanted them to say that I did have to, and I realized, I want to go, and that's reason enough. So, I left my job. I moved to San Francisco, and I attended this wonderful little Tante Marie's Cooking School. That was a dream. It was so much fun. I didn't want it to end, but it did end. I moved back to Michigan, to northern Michigan, quiet, quiet place, much quieter at that time than it is now, and I launched my blog and started writing my book and started planning my trip to Lebanon.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible. I'm sure this happened around this time too, maybe a little later, but tell us about your YouTube channel, your blog, that were all sort of pieces that grew your brand, but also perhaps it seems to me like you're really a teacher, like the way Sito was. Did you know you would love teaching people about Lebanese baking, or it was more that you wanted to do it and you wanted to share it and sort of the teacher and you came out?
Maureen Abood:
It goes hand in hand with the reason, the mission of what it is that I do, which is trying to establish, build, share, and keep these traditions, Lebanese baking tradition or whatever your baking tradition is that you love and want to engage in, alive. And to do that, to be enabling in that the teaching goes hand in hand with the recipe development and the stories that are so important, the meaning behind what we do and why we do it. And I had been a teacher, I'd been teaching English literature, and I really enjoy teaching very much and find that to be one of the most special ways of sharing the recipe and sharing the experience of being together, baking together. I learn, everyone else learns, and it's really a rich experience. The teaching comes alive absolutely on YouTube and on videos on my blog.
The blog, when I first set out I wanted to write my first book. I wanted to write about Lebanese cuisine, my first book, “Rose Water & Orange Blossoms” did that, but I was learning at that time, this is 10 years ago, 10 plus years ago, you have to have a blog and start to establish a following that way. Now things are more varied. There are many ways in which we need to do that as creators. But I did it sort of begrudgingly starting my blog, because I was so focused on this book. But once I started, I fell in love with that, because it was an opportunity to write and explore and it was an opportunity to teach and share.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us a little bit about “Rose Water & Orange Blossoms.”
Maureen Abood:
It covers all of the ground of Lebanese cuisine, from the Mazza, which are the appetizer small plate-style eating that we do for a meal or before a meal. The hummus, the baba ganoush, the labneh, these are all dip-style deliciousness. Then the specialties, the stuffed dishes, the grape leaf rolls, the kousa mahshi, which is a squash that's hollowed out, filled with usually a rice and meat mixture, and then poached in tomato broth or yogurt broth. I mean, these are traditions that are really, really special. The pickles, there's a whole chapter on pickling. Because the muna, the pickles, are a delicious part of our eating, and then the breads and the desserts. That chapter, those chapters kept stretching and stretching, and I had to cut myself off and realize then that there was a whole world of Lebanese baking that should be tended to and shared.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's such a good segue into the baking book. Would you say you identify more as a baker than as a cook?
Maureen Abood:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, so interesting.
Maureen Abood:
I do.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Maureen Abood:
Given two hours to be in my kitchen with no agenda, I'm going to bake something.
Jessie Sheehan:
With your first book, as you said, the baking chapter kept expanding, and so Lebanese baking kept calling to you, and there was also that you realized you couldn't find Lebanese baking books in a bookstore, in a library.
Maureen Abood:
I have a really tremendous library myself of all of the old books that are so wonderful and so special and a treasure, and the church books and in the recent years and intervening years since then many interesting Middle Eastern cuisine books and even Lebanese-focused books. But when I wanted to bake particular items, particular recipes, I'd go to my shelf and I'm pulling off all of these books trying to figure out the recipes, or leafing through a book and thinking, "This is a recipe mom never made. I have never had this." Now, there's barely any instruction there. What am I going to do? Because I don't want to spend all this time figuring out a recipe just to make this for dessert tonight or for a bread that I'm making this weekend. I saw a real gap and an opportunity to fill it. I wanted it for myself first.
Jessie Sheehan:
I get it. The other impetus for the book was your mother's passing, and you starting to collect her handwritten recipes and collecting others from cousins. Describe how sort of your mom and all of those old recipes influenced the book.
Maureen Abood:
When mom passed away in 2000, and there was a time that leading up to that, that was kind of a several year process, but yet, when she was gone, I was left to sit with this very heavy feeling that not only did I lose my mother, but we're losing a generation and the generation before them that has these treasures for us that goes with them, unless we capture it and of course write it down, but also for me to then refine it. But part of this experience was looking at all of her things and remembering her. And one of the best ways I did that was looking through her handwritten recipes, her recipe cards. And seeing her handwriting was such an avenue to her. And then I'm looking at it thinking, "Okay, I'm seeing Sito's handwriting here. I'm seeing my mother-in-law's handwriting here on all these cards." And I went to my cousins and my sisters-in-law and my sister and I said, "What handwritten recipes do you all have that you can share?"
I wanted to see what the treasure was. Really gold, gold was struck. And my dining table was filled with all these handwritten recipes, and what emerged from that was a story for me about the relationships between and among all of these women who shared their recipes. They baked together, they shared their recipes, they wrote their recipes down. I thought that this is worth talking about, worth encouraging us to keep doing. I hope that we will keep writing recipe cards, and if we aren't going to write recipe cards, I hope that we'll write in our books and have this message that can live on, and I want all of our next generations to have this. The other thing I thought about was, what if I hadn't had these elders? Who would I be? I wouldn't be the same Maureen. So, I want to make sure that for all of our next generation, these wonderful, wonderful kids in our family that they well beyond in the world, that they have what we have to offer them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you describe sort of the book, like what we find when we open it? I was mostly, I mean I was struck by so much, but one thing I'd love you to describe is the instructional process photos. It really is so helpful.
Maureen Abood:
It means a lot to see each step of the way as much as you can possibly do in a photo. And when we live in a world where video is such a part of how we take in our information, I wanted to make sure that the book will not only meet, but exceed expectations of teaching how. And while we aren't moving on the page, we are taking our time, and we're stopping for a minute and we're reading. And for me, that really brings an instruction to life. When you have all these steps, you want to make sure that your baker is going to be able to be successful, not get overwhelmed, and enjoy the process. Making sure we had the space for all of these process photos was a big deal because there's so much to say about each recipe and the stories behind them mean so much to all of us. And we needed to find a way to put it all in here, but make sure that there's room for the actual recipe and the instructions so that we can do it and do it well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now I want to talk about the ma'amoul. It's an iconic Middle Eastern cookie made with an array of shaping methods and fillings. And I heard it sort of described as like a melt-away shortbread cookie. Is that right, flavor-wise? Except it's yeasted?
Maureen Abood:
Yes. The yeast plays a very minimal role. It is not a soft sort of airy, bouncy type of cookie. It is a shortbread cookie. It is just a texture that does melt away, but holds its shape beautifully, and it needs to, because it's typically a molded cookie, a shaped cookie, there are many different shapes. But the basis for the ma'amoul is the shortbread, typically made in different ways by different families. My family always used all-purpose flour, and that was it.
Jessie Sheehan:
And does everybody use yeast, is yeast an ingredient in ma'amoul?
Maureen Abood:
It's an ingredient in my ma'amoul recipe in the book. It's not an ingredient that my aunt Hilda, for example, who made a lot of ma'amoul, used.
Jessie Sheehan:
Ah, interesting, interesting. So, the filling and the shaping is super important to ma'amoul making and eating, as different shapes not only look lovely, but they also indicate a different filling inside. There are many filling options, from classic nuts and dates to some of your inventions like cherry, chocolate, rose water, and apricot cardamom, and we are going to discuss them all.
Before we jump into the recipe. Would ma'amoul be the kind of thing that you would have only had at a holiday? Would they have been sitting on the kitchen counter? When would little Maureen have had ma'amoul?
Maureen Abood:
Special times are for special cookies. We had ma'amoul for the holidays, for Easter, for any kind of big feast event like a graduation party or a wedding, a celebration like that. And they are a project, so to speak, to some degree, so it warrants that they're special and for a special time. So this was something that we would look forward to as a treat at the times when there was something exciting going on.
Jessie Sheehan:
First things first, we're going to make the dough. In the stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, we're going to whip cool clarified butter. When you say cool, is that cooler than room temp or is it room temperature clarified butter?
Maureen Abood:
I'm calling for cool room temp, because every room is different. Every atmosphere is different wherever you might live. My experience with whipping clarified butter, and I've whipped a lot of clarified butter in my time, is that if it's too soft, it doesn't gain volume. It doesn't incorporate air into it. So I've tried it from rock hard out of the fridge, which can work, but you're going to kind of destroy your whisk attachment with that because it takes a little while to get it soft enough to run through. But the cool room temp is the perfect temperature for whipping so that it holds this air and it becomes almost like whipped cream. It is gorgeous.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow. And just remind us, clarified butter is basically when you've separated the butter fat from the milk solids and the water?
Maureen Abood:
Exactly. And it's a very simple process to do. You can certainly buy clarified butter as ghee in a jar, but the homemade is so simple to do, and you just are melting the butter. And I like to use at least a pound because you have more to work with there. It's easier to clarify it if you use a little bit more. In the melting process at a very low temperature, this separation occurs where you have your solids, you have the water that's held, it looks like milky water, and then the pure gold and butterfat in the middle-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, interesting.
Maureen Abood:
... in a sense. If you use standard grocery store sort of like general butter that's not cultured butter, you're going to have these foamy-looking solids that come to the top, and you have to skim those off. And then at the bottom of the pot, you'll have this milky liquid, and in the middle, this layer of the butterfat, if you use cultured or European-style butter, you have a much higher butterfat level. And it's amazing to see how everything, the solids and the milk fats, the water, all sinks to the bottom and you have just this incredibly fragrant, delicious butterfat that is easy to pour off, because you don't have any solids floating around.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you ever buy it, or do you always make your own?
Maureen Abood:
One year, I bought a five-pound bucket of clarified butter, and I swore I'd never go back, because it made my holiday baking so much faster and easier. But I still do make my own clarified butter all the time, and I keep it on hand all the time. Because if you have that at the ready, you're much more likely to dive in right away and make your ma'amoul or make your batlawa, the baklava.
Jessie Sheehan:
So in our stand mixer fitted with our whisk attachment, we're going to whip our cool clarified butter. Now we know exactly how to make it medium speed until it begins to smooth out. When you say smooth out, does that mean sort of when it first goes into the mixer, it might be almost like a little curdley or a little chunky, or do you just mean that it sort of is fluffy and in less hard pieces?
Maureen Abood:
It does have little chunks in it when you first start to whisk it, and you see that there, and you might think, "Oh my gosh, my butter is not smooth. It's not whipping." But keep going, and stop, scrape down the bowl to collect everything down around the base of the whisk attachment, and as you go, it's going to all smooth out.
Jessie Sheehan:
When we're scraping, are we using a flexible spatula and is there a brand you like? What are we scraping our bowl with?
Maureen Abood:
I love a flexible spatula of any kind. I love the wooden handled ones are really neat. Williams Sonoma makes really cute flexible spatulas, and I'm always collecting those, but any flexible spatula will work great.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. And so now we're going to increase the speed to high, and then we'll whip the butter until it's light and fluffy for about three minutes. So, we go for 30 seconds to kind of smooth it out, and then we'll move the speed to high. We'll whip until light and fluffy for about three minutes. Then we'll scrape down the sides of the bowl again, and we'll add granulated sugar and orange blossom water. Can you tell us a brand of orange blossom water and where we might purchase it?
Maureen Abood:
Orange blossom water is one of the most fragrant, emblematic scents and flavors of Lebanese baking. I love pure orange blossom water and any pure flower water. Typically, that's rose and orange blossom water, from Lebanon, and these are found all over Lebanon. But the brands that you find here, Mymouné, which I love, I have been selling it in my online shop for many, many years. It comes from a small family maker in Lebanon. These sisters own the brand and they make these beautiful preserves and flower waters, and I always open the jar and just inhale that a little bit every time. It's like when you open a bottle of vanilla, you can't help but put your nose there for a second before you add it to your mix.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love that. Or we could also do a combination of orange blossom water and rose water, and we will whip until just combined about 30 more seconds. Then we'll remove the bowl from the stand mixer. We're going to add semolina flour and all-purpose flour. A couple of questions. Are there brands of those flours like a brand of all-purpose and a brand of semolina that you like?
Maureen Abood:
King Arthur flour. I love it. It works so well. If you want your recipes to turn out exactly the way mine do, use that one. And it's easy to find. The semolina flour, not to be confused with straight semolina or farina. These are all different forms of. The semolina flour is really widely available in Middle Eastern markets, but you can look for Bob's Red Mill in the grocery store.
Jessie Sheehan:
We discussed that there's a little bit of instant yeast in the cookie, which is an unusual ingredient, but you will always find that in a ma'amoul.
Maureen Abood:
You will very often find that in a ma'amoul. You let the dough sit for a little bit, and the yeast lightens it. Again, it's not a bouncy experience, but it is a lightening effect.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we also add Mahleb, what's that?
Maureen Abood:
Mahleb is a very special Lebanese and Middle Eastern spice that is a kind of damp spice. It's pale in color, and it is the ground pit of a cherry, the St. Lucie cherry specifically, and it has an almond-like quality to it. It's very gentle, very light fragrance, very light flavor, but it's included in lots of our baking, and it's a wonderful spice. I always store Mahleb in the freezer, because it can go off, and I've purchased so many. At any spice store I'm in that has Mahleb, I buy it, and very often it's not quite as fresh as I'd like it to be. That's another ingredient that I sell, because I want the best for everyone, and I keep it in my shop in the freezer until it gets shipped to you.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then also a little bit of fine sea salt. So, we've added the yeast, the Mahleb, and the fine sea salt. Now take the bowl off of the stand mixer. We're going to use a wooden spoon to combine the ingredients into like a crumbly dough. Why have we stopped using the mixer now?
Maureen Abood:
Now we're taking a gentle approach, a light approach. Overmixing can happen so easily in the mixer. And I thought instead of changing out to the paddle attachment, because that felt cumbersome when I did it, I thought, "Let's just take everything off the mixer."
Jessie Sheehan:
That's great.
Maureen Abood:
"And stir in the flour with a wooden spoon." And the wooden spoon is nice and sturdy. It handles these heavier flours, but that mixing process, you just want to get everything combined.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. So, we're going to use this wooden spoon to combine the ingredients into a crumbly dough. We're going to add some whole milk and continue stirring. Do you ever get in there with your hands?
Maureen Abood:
Totally, totally. I do. And it is helpful, especially as you gain experience in baking. You're going to naturally reach in and touch your dough, your batter, your fillings, and see now is this holding together and especially after the rest period.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, at this point, we're going to just sort of be stirring, maybe using our hands until the dough becomes soft and pliable. We want to sort of squeeze the dough after we've incorporated the ingredients. And depending on how it feels, we'll add a touch more milk if it's a little too dry, or a touch of flour if it feels too soft, until we reach the right pliability. We'll cover our bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for about an hour. And while it rests, we'll make our desired fillings. We're going to go through three different types of fillings. There's one filling, which is like a walnut orange blossom or a pistachio rose water. So we're going to finely chop some toasted walnuts or pistachios. We'll transfer those to a small bowl, add some granulated sugar and some orange blossom or rose water and stir to combine. And that's one of our fillings. I love how simple the fillings are. Then the next one is an apricot cardamom, we'll finely chop dried apricots, transfer to a small bowl with sugar and cardamom. Is there a brand of cardamom that you love?
Maureen Abood:
Well, Burlap & Barrel makes beautiful spices, but I would say that your grocery store cardamom is okay. And just smell it, make sure that it's still fragrant. And if you can, buy them in the smaller size, because then you'll use it up more quickly, and then you can buy fresh again.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's such a good tip. I have some of those tiny ones. We're going to stir or use our fingertips to combine thoroughly to form a thick uniform paste. Then we could make a date orange blossom cinnamon filling, which would be date paste, a little bit of orange juice, and cinnamon. And then finally there's the cherry chocolate rosewater, which I believe is a Maureen invention, where we're going to finely chop dried cherries and chocolate chips. We want mini chocolate chips or finely chopped bar chocolate. Is there a brand of chocolate that you like to use?
Maureen Abood:
I'm a huge fan of Lindt.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Maureen Abood:
It's so readily available, and it's such quality flavor.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. We're going to transfer both the cherries and the chocolate to a small bowl. Add some granulated sugar and rosewater, stir, use our fingertips to combine thoroughly to form a thick, uniform paste. Do you have a favorite of these?
Maureen Abood:
Two favorites. The walnut orange blossom is my taste memory, my food memory. That one is the one that was always used in the family. They didn't use any other filling. It was walnut, orange blossom, period, the end. So I love it for that. And it is really, really delicious and flavorful. The date filling, to my surprise, takes over for me in some regards above all because of it's so moist and it has such a really nice mouth feel. When you put one of the flavorings into the date paste, orange juice or cinnamon or cardamom, it comes alive. It's really, really delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to assemble the cookies. We're going to arrange an oven rack in the middle position of our oven and preheat it to 375. We're going to line a baking sheet with parchment. Is there a favorite kind of baking sheet that you like?
Maureen Abood:
It's not easy to find a sheet that isn't going to warp at high temps, is it? But for baking at these mid-range temps, the Nordic Ware sheet is really nice. The William Sonoma sheet again is really, really nice.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, those gold touch ones are really great. We're going to knead our dough for about 30 seconds, incorporating additional tablespoons of milk or flour as needed, just making sure it's soft and pliable. And then we'll roll portions of one tablespoon of dough between our palms. And as we do so, we will proceed with one of the following three shaping methods. The first method is with a mold. Can you describe the molds and describe where we might find them? Oh, you have one. I wish everyone could see.
Maureen Abood:
This is a vintage, traditional wooden ma'amoul mold, and it's got this deep, dark patina to it. I love the vintage molds. I think I've bought all of them that you can buy anywhere online. But this one was my mother's and her mother's, and so I treasure this.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm just going to describe it, since the listeners won't be able to see it, but it's almost like a spatula shape with a very thick head that has a circular, almost like a circle that's carved out with a pattern inside. So, if you filled that circle with dough and then released it from the mold, it would have a beautiful pattern on it.
Maureen Abood:
Exactly, exactly. And the mold is a lot of fun, and you just need to make sure that you put a little flour into the mold before pressing in the dough and tap out the excess. And then your dough once formed and pressed in there, it'll tap out more easily in the end.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, with these molds, we'll coat the molds with flour, as you said. We'll knock out any excess, and we will repeat with the flour and the knocking out before shaping each cookie. We'll place the dough ball in the mold and press our fingertips into the center to create a small cavity and then push the dough above the edges of the mold as you go. We'll place a heaping teaspoon of filling into the cavity we've created. From around the perimeter of the mold we'll close the excess dough over the filling, smoothing any seams and covering the filling completely. And if needed we'll use a bit of extra dough and then we'll wipe any dough from the perimeter of the cavity. We'll turn the mold upside down firmly yet carefully tap the top corner of the mold on the counter once or twice, and the cookie will pop out. And if the mold clogs it all with dough, we'll rinse it, dry it, coat with flour again.
Maureen Abood:
Exactly it. And this process is really a lot of fun, and it's fun to do with other people, because then you have everybody filling and tapping on the counter, and it's like a workshop going on. There are some methods where they'll place a little bit of hosiery, like hose, nylon, over the mold and use that as a way of helping your cookie pop out more easily. And then you don't necessarily have to clean it. It doesn't get caked up as much.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that tip.
Maureen Abood:
Right now, I'm showing you the mold that I had made cast in resin that is the exact replica of the vintage mold, because I love to offer ma'amoul molds, really high-quality ma'amoul molds to people in my shop. And I couldn't get anyone to make the wooden molds for me, to the degree that they replicated this old world mold with the depth of the cavity and the crispness of the design in it. So, I thought, "What if we just cast exactly the way the old one was made?" And they work great. And these, I love them too, because when you wash the wood, it gets wet, and now you're working with a wet wooden mold. But the resin dries up really quickly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I also want to mention, just so the listeners can picture it. I was sort of picturing something almost that might be closed, a mold where you put the dough on one side and then you press down. It's important to note, a ma'amoul is open, literally it looks like a wooden spatula that has a cavity where the spoon part of the spatula is a literal cavity that you can press the dough into with this beautiful geometric pattern. So, we can also shape ma'amoul with a fork or a tong-huller. What is a tong-huller?
Maureen Abood:
The tong-huller is, I don't know why it's a strawberry-huller. I don't think I would haul a strawberry with that, I would use a knife. But it's just a very, maybe three-inch tong made of metal. And the bottom edge is about an inch long, two sides of the tong. And it has a rickrack type of zig, what would you call that?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, a little-
Maureen Abood:
Zig-zag saw tooth edge. And that sawtooth edge when you pinch together over the ma'amoul dough creates this really gorgeous design. I had seen this floating around online for years with other Lebanese bakers, and I thought, "What is it that they're doing?" Because this wasn't something that I had grown up with, and I hadn't really seen it in any bakeries either. And discovery, it's this tong-huller. It's really, really cool. I love the design that this makes. You have to press pretty deeply, and you can get a similar look with the tines of a fork pressing in side-by-side.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Do you sell the tong-huller in your shop?
Maureen Abood:
I have it on my shop, my kitchen shop.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's great.
Maureen Abood:
Which is all of my Amazon products where they're there, you can link through and buy them.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's great. That's great. Tong-huller, love that. So we're going to lightly dust the counter with flour. We'll use our hand to flatten our one-tablespoon dough balls into two-inch ovals or circles about a quarter inch thick. We'll place a heaping teaspoon. I think it's important to note, I feel like whenever you're filling something and you're asked to do it with a teaspoon, it always looks like such a small amount that you want to do more. But I am confident that Maureen has figured out that a teaspoon is the right amount so that the dough can encapsulate that filling and that it will taste delicious. We're placing a heaping teaspoon of filling in the center of the dough. We'll draw the edges of the dough together over the filling to enclose it, smoothing any cracks. And then we'll use the tines of a fork or a strawberry/tong-huller to prick deeply, if maybe we're using the tines of the fork or pinch the dough about five times around the top if we're using the huller in a decorative pattern. That sounds so pretty.
Maureen Abood:
And you can see that displayed in the process photos exactly how to do that if you want to try that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. The process photos for this particular recipe are so beautiful to look at and unbelievably helpful. If you're confused as to what the mold might look like, you'll see it in Maureen's book. Then we're going to shape by hand after filling and closing the dough, just like we just did for the tines of a fork or the tong-huller. We'll squeeze the top of it between our thumb and our first knuckle of our first finger to create a decorative ridge on the top of the ma'amoul. Can you describe that a little bit? Because it feels like I would just want to pinch it with my thumb and my first finger, but you're talking about a slightly, ah, you're talking about sort of pinching between your thumb and your first finger, but your first finger is bent, so your thumb ends up hitting your knuckle.
Maureen Abood:
Yes. This is how I make the crimp of a pie crust around the edge of the pie crust. It looks like a rope crimp. And I learned that from my mother, and I make every pie that way pretty much. And I thought, the top of the ma'amoul could be decorated this way. If we just pinch a little bit of the dough across the top in two or three spots, you make a ridge, and it just looks beautiful.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. Do you usually just make one shape with one filling, or you always for your celebrations, for your family, do you always make more than one shape?
Maureen Abood:
One shape, one filling?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Maureen Abood:
That's what we do at home. And yet, having an array on a platter, which we do experience, especially if you're buying from a bakery, it's beautiful to see the different shapes and to be able to try the different filling flavors. The flat round is generally the date, the oblong pistachio, and the dome the walnut filling. But you can put any in any if you like.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you have a favorite, or do your children have a favorite that you make?
Maureen Abood:
The favorite shape has to be this dome shape, because it's the most typical. Almost all of the molds I have are of the dome shape. It's a really fun one, because you can press deeply into it, and it has the ridges. It's the cover girl on the book.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, she's so beautiful.
Maureen Abood:
It's really traditional and memorable in our family.
Jessie Sheehan:
And just so I understand that one. So, we press the dough into the mold, but there's enough excess dough that we can then fold it over. So, there's like a flat bottom as it were?
Maureen Abood:
Exactly. Exactly it. And if there isn't enough dough to really make it come together over the filling, you just speckle it with more.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, with a little bit of extra. Yeah, yeah I love that. Now it's ma'amoul baking time. We're going to carefully transfer our shaped ma'amoul to a prepared baking sheet. We'll place them one inch apart. We'll bake until they turn pale, golden brown, 13 to 15 minutes. Do you like to rotate? Would you rotate them halfway, or do you just close the oven and-
Maureen Abood:
I would rotate, especially if you know your oven has hot spots.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Maureen Abood:
And most do, I suppose. So, halfway through rotating is always a good idea just for that even bake. But you're going to get there. In any case, it can be a really nice thing to keep things even.
Jessie Sheehan:
And would you ever freeze the ma'amoul or chill them and bake them off at a different time? Or do you always shape and then bake?
Maureen Abood:
I always shape and then bake, and then freeze. Just because you've got these ridges, these decorative tops that are delicate. And even if you freeze these individually and then put them in something to freeze them, I think that you run this risk of marring.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now we're going to let the cookies cool on the pan to room temperature, at least an hour. Why so long?
Maureen Abood:
This cookie, not unlike the Ghraybeh butter cookie in the book, it's delicate and it takes its time to solidify and be solid, be strong enough to hold together, and when you pick it up not coming off on your fingertips. So I just like to let it get cool, cool. And then I know it's going to hold its shape and be just fine as I do what I'm going to do with it next.
Jessie Sheehan:
And which is usually sifting confectioners' sugar on top?
Maureen Abood:
Yes. Now, traditionally, the date ma'amoul and the pistachio ma'amoul in their shapes don't have the confectioners' sugar over top. But any ma'amoul that we make at home we always sugar the top. The dough itself is not that sweet. The filling is sweet-ish. So the dusting of sugar on top, to me, as a sweet tooth, gives it what I want.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, yes, yes. And then we will serve them. Love it. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Maureen. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Maureen Abood:
You are my Michigan cherry pie.
Jessie Sheehan:
Exactly. I'm your sour cherry pie from Michigan. That's it for today's show. Thank you to Diamond of California Nuts and California Prunes for supporting our show. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.substack.com. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and tell your pals about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.