Sellou

Morocco's dense, spiced energy sweet, also called sfouf: flour browned slowly in butter, toasted sesame and fried almonds ground through it with cinnamon and anise, bound with honey and oil into a soft, sandy, pressable mound, kept for new mothers and broken out to break the Ramadan fast

Origin: Morocco

From the journey of Sesame.

Sellou (called sfouf in some regions) is one of the most distinctive sweets of the Moroccan kitchen: not a pastry or a cake but a dense, soft, spiced meal of browned flour, toasted sesame, and fried almonds, bound with honey and oil. It keeps for weeks and is enormously rich and sustaining, which is why it is the traditional food given to new mothers to restore their strength, and a favourite for breaking the fast during Ramadan, when concentrated nourishment is wanted at dusk. Sesame is at its heart: toasted dark and ground through the mixture, it gives sellou much of its nuttiness and its sandy, melting texture. The sweet belongs to the wider Maghrebi and Andalusi tradition that wove sesame deep into North African baking and confectionery, from the seeded khobz of every medina to the honeyed chebakia of Ramadan. It is eaten in small handfuls or pressed into a cone, with a glass of mint tea or a bowl of harira.

Ingredients

Sellou

  • 500 g plain flour
  • 250 g white sesame seeds
  • 200 g blanched almonds
  • 1 tbsp aniseed
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon

Binding

  • 200 g unsalted butter, melted, plus extra if needed
  • 150 ml mild olive oil or neutral oil
  • 150 g honey, warmed
  • 100 g icing sugar, plus extra to finish
  • 1 pinch salt

Method

  1. Brown the flour. Spread the flour in a large dry pan over low to medium heat (or in a wide oven tray) and toast, stirring very often, for 15 to 20 minutes until it turns an even pale to mid golden brown and smells biscuity and nutty. Tip out and cool.
  2. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan, stirring, until golden and fragrant; tip out. Fry or toast the almonds until golden, then cool.
  3. Toast the aniseed briefly until fragrant. Grind the toasted sesame, all but the reserved almonds, and the aniseed in batches in a grinder to a coarse, oily meal; do not reduce to a smooth paste.
  4. In a large bowl, combine the browned flour, the ground sesame-almond mixture, the cinnamon, icing sugar, and salt, mixing thoroughly.
  5. Stir in the warm honey, then add the melted butter and oil gradually, mixing, until the sellou comes together into a soft, moist, sandy mixture that just holds its shape when pressed in the hand. Add a little more melted butter or oil if it is too dry.
  6. Mound the sellou onto a serving plate, pressing it into a cone or dome. Smooth the surface, dust with icing sugar, and decorate with the reserved whole almonds and toasted sesame. Serve in small handfuls or pressed portions with mint tea.

Notes

Sellou is intensely rich and is eaten in small amounts, by the spoonful or pressed into little balls. The balance of fat is to taste: more butter and honey gives a softer, sweeter, more cohesive sweet, less gives a drier, sandier one. Some families add toasted, ground gum arabic for aroma, or replace some almonds with walnuts. It is the classic Ramadan companion to harira, the two eaten together to break the fast, and is made in quantity to keep through the month.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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