Recipes for amazing and delicious sweets

Tunisian sweets are known to be the most delicious ever in the North African countries and anyone tasting them would love them; I did a small experience with my Portuguese and Bangladeshi friends when I was spending my internship in Portugal. I offered them to taste some Tunisian made sweets and they fall in love with the amazing flavour and texture they really were curious about the recipe of these sweets, that is the reason why I chose today to show the recipe of my most favourite Tunisian sweets. They can be of course made at home if we have a good oven because the texture is very light and they can get burned very easily.

The first recipe I will begin with is about ghrayba, which is a typically Tunisian dessert that we serve in general in parties or after the month of Ramadan;

• We must begin with the preparation of the main mix , it is based on chickpea that we can buy from outside stores, we need one kilo to prepare good quantity especially in the parties, it must be smashed and transformed into powder that is commercialised, or we can prepare it manually by putting chickpea into a grinding machine and we have the powder needed that we must mix with 500 g of flour,
• We add 250 g of sugar powder very soft and 250 g butter that we must melt in a special recipient and we add one glass of olive or vegetal oil,
• we add to the mix
bicarbonate or chemical baking powder to make the mix be more soft,
• we mix everything manually or with special kitchen ustensil and we can add then a powder made from dried fruits such as nuts, pistachio and almonds but the powder must be very soft,
• A special grinding machine is then used to smash more softly the mix obtained that we must then prepare in special ways, we can use the different decorating molds like squares, hearts, or triangle and use them to give a certain form to the first paw prepared,

• Once the decorated forms are ready we must put them in a plate where we already used oil or butter so that the sweets don't get burned from the bottom,
• Finally we serve the sweets in the different forms with cold drinks.

I must specify that there are different types of this sweet that can be prepared from the pistachio and not from cheapeak, or flour, sorghum and of course they have different flavours and very delicious taste.

The second recipe for today is the famous Makrouth that we prepare also in traditional parties, they can also be served in special events such as the marriage or the engagement parties, it is also very famous in the city Kerouan where it is the local traditional sweet of the city, and many shops inside the city offers the makrouth as a special dish.

• first step in the preparation of this special sweet is the use of one kilo of semolina that we mix with 200 g of flour and one spoon of salt, one glass of warm olive oil for the preparation of the first paw and we leave it to rest half an hour,
• We then prepare half a kilo of dates that we clean under water and we remove their extra things to have only the fruit alone, we add one spoon of olive oil and some canella,
• We put the preparation inside the grinding machine to smash it into more soft powder, we then mix the paw manually until the formation of long rolls that we must form of about 5 cm,
• after the formation of dates, we take the semolina paw and mix it very well with olive oil in the shape of a baguette of bread, we then insert the date paw inside the prepared paw of semolina and then we manually mix the whole, we flatten it with the stamp made from wood which offers different designs typical of this sweet especially
• We cut then the paw prepared in the shape of different pieces of rhombus, we have then the choice for cooking them inside the oven for twenty minutes or they can be fried in olive oil.
• We prepare the sweet sugar to cover the different rhombus pieces by putting two glasses of sugar and one glass of water, a bit of lemon and we put them under fire until we obtain of a light liquid boiled.
• The different rhombus pieces are then decorated with the sugar liquid preparation to give them the sweet flavour with some sesame seeds and we can as well decorate them with a mix of dried fruits like nuts and pistachio also then save them after they get cold to the guests.

The third recipe that I am presenting today is of the special cream that we offer in North African countries but also Egypt and most of the Arabic countries in the special day of prophet Muhammad 's birth. This is to celebrate this day exactly like the Christmas for European countries.

The recipe is composed of these special steps:

• First, we must buy nuts of very good quality from the grocery and we use 500 g of nuts that we must put inside the over until we obtain a red colour so that it can be smashed by the special machine and give it oil,
• We must put them in the grinding machine to smash them into a more soft paw then we add to the paw 200 g of sugar, we add one glass of sugar milk concentrated,
• We then add two litres of milk and 250 g of flour that were previously mixed with two glasses of water, the mix of flour and water can form balls that we must remove in very slowly way to be used in the main mix,
• W put the mix under fire for almost forty five minutes, we must not forget to turn around very good the mix obtained otherwise it can get stuck in the recipient,
• In the moment of obtaining a boiled cream, we separate it in different bowls, then we proceed to the preparation of the second white cream,
• The white cream must be prepared in this way, we mix four eggs only the yellow part with flour spoons of sugar, one litre of milk and two spoons of corn starch, one spoon of water roses or geranium to give the fresh sweet flavour, we then put the mix under soft fire until the mix is boiling,
• We must proceed then with the pouring of the white cream on the previous cream of nuts we already put inside bowls,
• The final step is the decorate the creams with dried fruits like nuts, pistachio, chocolates, sweets, and we usually make different designs, we even decorate in the way of writing names or in the shape of hearts, then we serve them cold.

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