Rosquettes Égyptiennes
Visiting eighty-five-year-old Aimée Beressi and ninety-one-year-old Lydia Farahat is like crawling into a cozy casbah. Friends since they left Egypt in the late 1950s, they get together once a week at Lydia’s apartment on Rue Dragon, right near Saint-Germain-des-Prés. For more than forty years, the two have been discussing recipes, current events, and the Egypt of their childhood. When Aimée was growing up in Cairo, there was no school on Thursday, so she helped her mother and aunt make the cakes and cookies for the Sabbath. The word rosquettes, which comes from the Spanish rosquillas, refers to round cookies with a hole. Aimée still bakes a batch each week to bring to her friend of so many years.
Recipe information
Yield
70 rosqueittes
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Mix the sugar, lemon zest, two of the eggs, and the oil in the bowl of an electric mixer. Lower the speed, and carefully add 1 cup of the flour, the baking powder, and the salt. Slowly add the remaining 1 1/3 cups of flour, until the dough comes together. Turn it out onto a floured surface, and mold the dough into a ball, adding enough extra flour so that it will not stick to your hands but retains the imprint of your finger. Knead until the dough is supple and smooth. If it continues to stick to your hands or the surface, add more flour.
Step 2
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Sprinkle an ungreased cookie sheet with flour, and lightly flour the work surface.
Step 3
Take a piece of dough about the size of a golf ball, and roll it into a long snake that is 1/4 inch in diameter. Cut the long roll into 4-inch pieces. Bring the two ends of each piece together to form a doughnut, and gently pinch them together. Put on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough. Beat the remaining egg, and brush the rosquettes with it.
Step 4
Put the rosquettes close together on the floured cookie sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden.
