Qrass Bil-Tamr (Ramadan Date Cookies)

Ramadan is the most important month in the Islamic calendar, a time for fasting during the day and feasting after sunset and until sunrise. During that whole month, sweets occupy an important place in people’s lives. They are offered to guests who come to visit after sunset, or they are snacked on throughout the night before the fast starts again at sunrise. They are also taken to family and/or friends during the nightly visits—social life increases considerably during Ramadan— and these date-filled cookies are a typical Ramadan sweet, together with the nut versions called ma’mul, filled with pistachios or walnuts and shaped differently for people to tell which is which. 

Qrass bil-tamr are time-consuming to make but well worth the effort. If you can’t find store-bought date paste, substitute with an equal amount of pitted dates and process these with the cinnamon and butter in your food processor until they turn into a smooth paste. The cookies are shaped with the use of a special mold that traditionally was carved out of wood but is now more often than not made in plastic. I still have my mother’s molds, which—though I could easily replace them as there are still young men who carve them by hand in the souk of Damascus in Syria—I guard jealously as they have acquired a lovely patina over the years.