Shekerbura
Novruz pastry from Azerbaijan: crescent pies of milk-and-egg dough wrapped around ground walnuts, sugar and cardamom. With strong tea.
Overview
The crescent pastry that marks Novruz, the Persian new year celebrated across Azerbaijan in the third week of March, baked alongside two other ritual sweets (pakhlava and goghal). You make a short milk-and-egg dough and rest it for an hour, while you grind walnuts fine but not powdered (texture matters) and mix them with caster sugar and ground cardamom for the filling. The dough rolls thin to two millimetres, cuts into nine-centimetre circles, and gets a mound of filling on one half before the other half folds over to make a half-moon. The edge crimps with a fork or, traditionally, with a small pinching tool called a maqqaş that gives the rim a decorative wheat-sheaf pattern. Bake at 180°C for twenty-five minutes until pale gold, dust with icing sugar while still warm. Strong tea, a family table, the spring equinox in the air.
Ingredients
Dough
- 400 g plain flour
- 200 g unsalted butter (cold, cubed)
- 100 ml whole milk (cold)
- 2 egg yolks (large)
- 1 tablespoon caster sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
Filling
- 300 g walnuts (or hazelnuts), ground medium-fine
- 150 g caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1 egg white (large, lightly beaten)
To finish
- Icing sugar (for dusting)
Method
Stage 1 - Dough
- In a wide bowl, rub the cold butter into the flour, salt and 1 tablespoon sugar until it resembles breadcrumbs.
- In a jug, whisk the milk and egg yolks.
- Pour into the flour; mix with a knife until just coming together.
- Tip onto a lightly floured surface; bring together as a smooth disc without overworking.
- Wrap; chill 1 hour.
Stage 2 - Filling
- Pulse the walnuts in a food processor to a medium-fine grind - finer than chopped, coarser than ground almonds.
- Stir in the caster sugar and ground cardamom.
- Drizzle in the lightly beaten egg white; mix until just clumpable (not wet, not crumbly).
Stage 3 - Cut and fill
- Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan).
- Line two baking trays with parchment.
- Roll the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface to 2 mm thick.
- Cut out 9 cm circles with a glass or cutter.
- Place a heaped tablespoon of filling on one half of each circle (leave a 1 cm clear border).
- Fold the other half over to enclose; press the edges to seal.
Stage 4 - Crimp
- With the tines of a fork or a flat pair of crimping tweezers, pinch a delicate pattern along the curved edge.
- Traditional patterns are dots, leaves or zigzag lines.
- Don't pinch through the dough - the goal is a decorative impression.
Stage 5 - Bake
- Arrange on the trays, 3 cm apart.
- Bake 22-25 minutes until the dough is pale gold (not browned - shekerbura should look creamy, almost ivory).
- Cool 5 minutes on the tray.
Stage 6 - Finish
- Dust generously with icing sugar while still warm.
- Cool fully on the rack before storing.
Notes
- Pale gold, not amber: shekerbura colour is the visual marker - over-browned and they read as a generic cookie. The low temperature and short bake protects this.
- Egg white binds the filling: without it the filling crumbles when the pastry is cut. Don't use a whole egg - the yolk muddies the flavour.
- Crimping is the signature: even simple fork tines transform shekerbura from a generic crescent into something recognisable. Press evenly.
Storage
- Keeps 1 week in an airtight tin at room temperature; the dough firms slightly over the first day and stays good.
- Freezes baked, 2 months. Re-dust with icing sugar after thawing.
- Don't refrigerate - the dough goes from delicately short to dense.
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