Bosnia and Herzegovina

BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA: hurmašice

What a fun recipe to make. My apologies BH, I know they might not be that fancy but I promise they are thoroughly soaked in a divine syrup. Asked Roar (our son, who was at Mostar UWC) and he was super helpful but worried these are not uniquely BH. I don’t know, but wherever they’re from, I recommend highly. PS the recipe below is a bit fussy and overexplainy. Sorry.

INGREDIENTS:

Vegetable oil, to grease
2 eggs
165 g (¾ cup) caster sugar
1 orange, zest finely grated
125 g butter, softened
330 g (1½ cup) plain flour, sifted
½ tsp baking powder
50g (¼ cup) fine semolina

Syrup:

800 g granulated white sugar
1 litre (4 cups) water
1 lemon, juiced
8 cloves
1 tsp vanilla bean paste

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan-forced). Brush two large shallow oven trays with oil to grease.

To make the syrup, combine the sugar, water, lemon juice, cloves and vanilla bean paste in a medium saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring to boil, reduce the heat to lowest possible heat and simmer gently, for 35 minutes or until the syrup thickens and reduces to about 900 ml.

Meanwhile, to make the dough, use an electric mixer to beat the butte, sugar and orange zest until pale and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until well combined and smooth. Sift together flour and baking powder into a bowl, then stir in the semolina. Add to butter mixture and use a wooden spoon and then your hands to mix to a soft dough (see Baker’s tips).

Roll about a tablespoonful of the dough into a log about and 2 cm wide and 6.5 cm long. Press the log lightly onto the small hole-side of a box grater to flatten slightly to form a biscuit about 4 cm x 7 cm and about 1 cm thick and to create a pattern on the surface (see Baker’s tip). Gently peel the dough away form the grater and then use your hands to round the ends slightly to form an oval if needed. Place on the greased baking tray. Repeat with the remaining dough, placing about 2 cm apart.

Bake the biscuits for about 20 minutes, swapping the trays half way through baking until golden brown and cooked through. Pour the hot syrup over the hot biscuits. Set aside until the biscuits soak up most of the syrup (this will take about 30 minutes).

These biscuits will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for 2 weeks, with the syrup spooned over. Serve straight from the fridge or at room temperature.