If you take a tour of our blog, you will discover articles that unravel the Moroccan gastronomy so that you can taste it with full knowledge of the facts during your trip. And more specifically, to enjoy the local pastrieswith delicacies such as chebakia or the milk pastry. Now it’s the gazelle horn’s turn, one of the sweetest sweets sweetsthe redundancy. We explain what it consists of and how it is prepared.
What is gazelle horn. Differences with marzipan
The gazelle horn is so called in a display of imagination: they are small sweets that adopt this suggestive shape, since at a specific moment in their elaboration process they must be closed in the form of a pastry, giving them this unmistakable appearance. More specifically, its serrated edge, which may resemble the undulations of this antelope’s antlers.
As we suggested in the title, they can be considered an equivalent of Spanish marzipanThe ingredients, however, are not exactly the same. However, the ingredients are not exactly the same. If we take Toledo marzipan as a reference, the ingredients are very simple: almonds and sugarin a proportion of 50% each. And the resulting paste is baked until the final marzipan is obtained.
However, Moroccan gazelle horn incorporates more ingredients, which give it different nuances and a different texture as well. A standard recipe for this sweet would include chopped almonds and sugar, as in the Spanish one, but also ground cinnamon, orange blossom water, flour, salt and butter. In some cases, icing sugar, sesame and other ingredients are added.
In addition, in the case of the gazelle horn, what reminds us of marzipan is its filling, which is wrapped in a kind of thin bag made with the aforementioned flour. flourwhich gives it a more consistent and robust touch, and also somewhat larger.
How are gazelle horns made? Some keys
Without pretending to turn this article into a cooking recipe, it is interesting to know the steps involved in making a gazelle horn. The first step is prepare the fillingstarting with the ground almond powder. In this case, it does not matter if the paste contains any lumps, as many diners find it pleasant to find small pieces of this nut.
Then add the sugar, cinnamon and orange blossom water, add the sugar, cinnamon and orange blossom water. to form a hard and earthy paste at the beginning, but more oily after binding the ingredients well, as the almonds release their own oil. This is precisely the advantage of grinding the almonds at home, since buying them already ground reduces their capacity to bind because they contain less oil.
On the other hand the dough is workedThe dough is made with sifted flour, salt, orange blossom water and butter. To obtain a very fine dough, it is recommended to use a roller, working on a floured board, resulting in round sheets.
Next, small rolls of the filling are made (about 7 cm long), inserted into the sheet of dough and sealed well. Then, they are placed on a tray in the oven to bake at a temperature of 180º for about 20 or 25 minutes.
And now that you know what it is and how to make gazelle horn, the most important thing is to try it. But that won’t be difficult: this sweet is usually present in most pastry shops and stalls of the medina, stacked in small mountains next to other typical confections of the country… that we will unravel in other posts of this blog. A temptation for the senses that we recommend you to try during your stay in the country.
