Ancient Egyptian Candy Recipes

R

richard-in-cincy

Well-known member
Found these two rather intriguing recipes yesterday. I do not vouch for the historical accuracy of their provenance, however:

Caramel Stuffed Walnuts from Cleopatra

Legend has it that this recipe has been deciphered from a hieroglyphic. These sweets were served at wedding banquets and given their high energy value, we imagine that Cleopatra offered them to her lovers to restore their spirits.

Makes 6 or 7 servings, or about 15 candies

Preparation time is about 35 minutes, including five minutes for cooking

Ingredient:

50 g almond flour

50 g sugar

1–2 tablespoon orange essence

30 walnut halves

50 g sugar

Instructions:

1. Mix the almond flour (milled almonds, grind your own in a food processor or blender if you like) with the sugar and enough orange essence to form a paste.

2. Place a little of this paste between two walnut halves and press.

3. Melt the sugar in a pan with a few drops of water and when it starts to turn to caramel, remove it from the heat source and dip the nuts inside to coat them with caramel.

4. Set them out on grease proof paper to dry.

Ancient Egyptian Date Candy

This recipe was from 1600BC and was found on an ostraca.

1 cup of fresh dates

1t of cinnamon

1/2t of kardemam seed

1/2 cup of fresh ground walnuts

small amount of warm honey

dish full of fine ground almonds

Procedure

1. mix the dates with some water to paste

2. mix in cinnamon and kardemon seeds

3. kneed in the walnuts

4. form balls, spread with honey and cover in the ground almonds.

 
Oh so sweet.....dates are too sweet for me....both puds, the "omm Ali" ones...

sound intrigueing and both so different. Please tell me how they work out if you try them. I am so trying to loose weight that I MUST not try anything new yet....I taste cook my way through new dishes, more's the pity.

I found the OmmAli while searching Dubai Recipe sites......some quite interesting dishes to be found there....my fav is whole roast lamb but can not imagine putting this on the table for most folk I know here.
Although once we went to some French folks BBQ...they did a pig and a lamb on spits. The lamb was stuffed with cous cous pistachios, raisins etc...we were on a beach and the light was poor and no one seemed to mind the whole animals.
We've done spit roasts way back in SA but here I can only do oven or open fire..... just does not seem right to stick a whole lamb in the oven.....
However I am hankering after those Mid East flavours right now...YUMMMMMM.

 
I hear you on that...

i have a family gathering next month. I always bring "the weird food". So this year I'm bringing an "All Egyptian" assortment. That should flip the bubbas' hats. LOL I am so intrigued by the version you posted with baking the already set custard on the baked puff pastry. That sounds wonderful.

When I lived in Austria, the place I stayed was owned by a man who worked with a lot of Arabs on construction projects. There was a contingent visiting and they were going to prepare a lamb for a celebration, and they brought a live lamb and slit it's throat in the driveway before dressing it for the spit.

Claus still to this day talks about what a mess they made in his driveway.

 
Ewwwww. I'm having a hard time visiualizing a whole lamb in my oven---maybe in CathyZ's though.

she could probably fit 2 in there

when it's working!! ha. imagine thanksgiving dinner prep w/o an oven. It was marvelous.

 
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