Shekerbura
App. 40 p.
Pastry:
Flour 1kg
Butter 500g
Egg yolks 5
Sour cream (Smetana) 250g
Filling:
Walnuts (lightly toasted, cleaned from skin and ground) 600g
Sugar 600g
Cardamom
Cooking time: 20 min
Temperature: 160-170
Chop flour with butter till lumps turn into small bit of size of a grain (you can use a chopper), then add sour cream and yolks. Mix well.
Fridge overnight, start baking in the morning. It is best to make 50 balls of the same size (about 60g each) and keep them in the fridge. Take one or 2 balls at a time, roll out using rolling pin into about 10-12cm pancakes. You can use a small saucer to make them all the same size, it make all shekerbura of the same size which is very beautiful. Fill the pancakes with with filling (it’s the same as in paxlava).
Then put the ends together and shape them into a ‘plait’ shape. Start from the bottom by stretching a bit of pastry, using thumb fold it in. Continue till you reach the top.
Then it’s time to decorate your shekerbura. Use special pinchers. They can be found in special shops (or ordered from Baku). The pinchers are called maggash. This decoration is a national Azerabijani decoration and is called Jinagi.
And here you have another way to decorate. Use your fantasy!
This is how maggash looks
Bake till they start to tern colour.
On the photo you can see shekerbura with almonds. Walnut filling is usually darker. My grandmother used to say that classic shekerbura is made with almond. (Almond is to be blanched in hot water for 5 mins, remove skin, grind and mix with sugar).
Nush Olsun! Enjoy your meal!
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