Kleicha — Print Recipe — The Culinary Codex

Golden, tender cookies stuffed with a sweet cardamom-spiced date paste, shaped into crescents or rounds. These are Iraq's most iconic sweet, baked for holidays and offered to every guest with tea.

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
200g butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of saffron in 1 tbsp warm water
For filling: 400g pitted dates
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Instructions

1 Mix flour, sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, and yeast. Rub in softened butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2 Add milk and saffron water, knead into a soft, pliable dough. Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
3 Cook pitted dates with butter, cardamom, and cinnamon over low heat, mashing into a smooth paste. Cool completely.
4 Roll dough into a long rectangle. Spread date paste in a strip along one edge, then roll up tightly into a log.
5 Slice the log into 2cm rounds. Alternatively, cut circles from rolled dough, fill, and shape into crescents.
6 Press each cookie with a kleicha mold or fork for the traditional pattern. Bake at 180C for 15-18 minutes until golden.

Did You Know?

Kleicha are so central to Iraqi identity that the recipe appears in ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets dating back thousands of years, making them one of the oldest known cookie recipes.