All recipes Top collections
Cookies France Pastry
About Contact Buy us a coffee
Savory Syrian Ka'ak

Savory Syrian Ka'ak

Ka'ak Halabi is Aleppo's savory ring cookie — a short, rich dough packed with sesame and warm spice. It's baked, then dried in a cooling oven so it stays shatter-crisp for days — the thing to have on hand for a guest with tea or bitter coffee.

Cookie Middle East Salty Moderate

The Aleppo Connection

Halabi means "from Aleppo," Syria's great baking city. What sets its ka'ak apart is the spicing — nigella seeds and mahleb, a fragrant spice ground from cherry pits — worked straight into a dough already heavy with sesame. Kept in a tin, they keep for days, which is the whole point.

The Recipe

Yield About 40 ka'ak
Prep Time 40 minutes
Baking Time 20–25 minutes
Total Time 2 hours

What you'll need

  • Large mixing bowl
  • Two baking sheets
  • Parchment paper
  • Wire rack
  • A wooden spoon (to prop the oven door)

Ingredients

Dough

  • 500g (4 cups) all-purpose flour, sifted
  • 5g (1¼ tsp) baking powder
  • 1½ tsp salt (a little more if you like it saltier)
  • 100g (7 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
  • 120ml (½ cup) canola or corn oil
  • 180–240ml (¾–1 cup) lukewarm water

Seed & spice mix

  • 70g (½ cup) sesame seeds, raw
  • 1 tbsp nigella seeds (optional, but classic)
  • ½ tsp ground mahleb (optional; or ¼ tsp ground anise)

Instructions

  1. Mix the dry ingredients In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, sesame seeds, nigella, and mahleb.
  2. Rub in the fats Add the melted butter and the oil. Rub everything together with your fingertips until the mixture looks like damp sand.
  3. Bring the dough together Add the lukewarm water a little at a time, mixing with a light hand, until a soft, smooth dough just comes together — add only as much water as you need. Stop the moment it's uniform. Over-kneading makes the ka'ak hard instead of crisp.
  4. Rest Cover the bowl and let the dough rest on the counter for 20–30 minutes.
  5. Shape the rings Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and line two baking sheets with parchment. Pinch off a walnut-sized piece of dough, roll it into a pencil-thick rope about 12cm (5 inches) long, and press the ends together to form a ring.
  6. Bake Bake for 20–25 minutes, until the ka'ak are an even golden brown.
  7. Dry them out Turn off the oven, prop the door open a crack with a wooden spoon, and leave the ka'ak inside for another 15–20 minutes. This is what makes them shatter-crisp and gives them their long shelf life.
  8. Cool Cool completely on a wire rack, then store in an airtight tin.

Tips & Notes

  • Mahleb — ground from the pit of the St. Lucie cherry — is the traditional Aleppan note. A spice shop will have it; ¼ tsp ground anise is a fair stand-in, or leave it out
  • Keep the kneading short. The dough should feel soft and rich, never stretchy
  • Don't skip the oven-drying step — it's the difference between a cookie that's crisp today and one that's still crisp days later
  • Swap the butter for margarine to make them pareve