WEEK 5 (Continued)
After posting my last blog, I followed the recipe from Sousou’s Youtube video to make the baked version of the Makrouts. I went through the steps of steaming and blending the dates to make the date filling; I rolled the date paste into licorice shaped tubes and put them in the fridge. Watching the video as I rolled the dough, the woman was effortlessly manipulating the dough into shape. I on the other hand, seemed to be having an arm-wrestling contest against a clump of cornmeal, and I was losing. My frustration started to creep in, but I told myself that since I was not going to be deep frying this batch, the dough would at least not fall apart in the oven.
Suddenly, it dawned on me. I realized that the reason I could not remember the deep frying portion of this whole experiment was because my aunt never actually deep fried the Makrouts. The cookies she made weren’t oven baked cookies, but they weren't deep fried either. I thought about it for a few seconds and then bam! I remembered! She had pan fried the cookies! Just a little oil and that was it. I was so excited, that I prepared the rest of the dough, pulled a big skillet out and tried the process once more. Pan frying happens to be something I am familiar with, so the process went smooth. I was so excited, that I almost forgot that I had put a whole batch of cookies in the oven! I pulled them out and set them aside. Thankfully they didn’t burn and they seemed to resemble large Fig Newtons. But at this point, I didn’t even care about the oven version anymore. I was focused on my pan fried success. I made probably 6 different batches of the pan fried Makrouts (only cooking about 4 at a time). Each time I fried another batch, they got better and better in consistency. They became easier to keep from burning, once I got a rhythm down, and the shape of them started to resemble more of the diamond shape I was trying to create. For the first time in this 20time project, I was back in the groove of really enjoying the baking process, as I most often bake for the relaxing calm it brings me.