Kwarezimal

Ingredients

•    250g flour
•    250g almonds, roasted
•    2tbsp cocoa powder
•    200g brown sugar
•    Rind of 1 lemon
•    Rind of 1 orange
•    1tsp ground cloves
•    1tsp ground cinnamon
•    1tsp orange blossom water
•    Honey for topping off the Kwarezimal

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C and prepare a large baking tray by covering it with lightly oiled baking paper
2. Blitz the roasted almonds until you have a roughly crushed mixture. If you don’t have a food processor, put the almonds into a plastic bag and crush with a rolling-pin or mallet.
3. Sift the flour into a large bowl. Add the ground almonds into the mix, as well as the brown sugar, cocoa, ground cloves, ground cinnamon and the rinds of the orange, and lemon.
4. Add the orange blossom water and very slowly, start adding water to the mixture. Work it into the mixture with a spatula and start forming a dough which should be firm; not too stiff, but not too watery.
5. Work until you have a slightly firm, elastic dough; do not overwork the dough.
6. Lightly flour your hands to prevent extra stickiness and pull chunks off the dough and roll them out into thick, sausage like shapes, then flatten them slightly to get an oblong sort of cookie shape.
7. Place onto your prepared baking tray and create a cross-hatch design on the Kwarezimal by lightly pressing the blunt edge of a butter knife into the newly formed shapes.
8. Place in the oven. Leave for approximately 15 minutes. They should have a soft, pliable sort of texture once they’re out of the oven.
9. In the meantime, get the left over 50g of almonds, and crush them roughly.
10. Drizzle honey over the biscuits, adding the roughly ground almonds on top.