Cookies in the shape of a crescent are known as cornes de gazelle. They have a sweet almond-orange blossom filling within, and pistachios are crushed on top. They are well-known throughout all of North Africa, particularly in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, and go by the names tcherek, tcharek, or kaab el ghazal.
| Prep Time: | 1 mins |
| Cook Time: | 45 mins |
| Additional Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 16 mins |
| Servings: | 50 |
| Yield: | 50 cookies |
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups almonds
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon orange blossom water
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup softened, unsalted butter, diced
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 egg, beaten
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 ½ tablespoons orange blossom water
- 6 tablespoons honey
- 1 tablespoon orange blossom water
- 3 tablespoons crushed pistachios, or to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread almonds over the baking sheet.
- Bake in the preheated oven until almonds are fragrant and roasted, 20 to 25 minutes.
- Prepare pastry dough while almonds are roasting. Combine flour, 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon butter, and salt in a bowl and rub together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add egg, oil, and 1 1/2 tablespoons orange blossom water; knead everything into a smooth pastry dough. Add a little water, 1 teaspoon at a time, if dough is too dry. Shape pastry dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and set aside for 30 minutes.
- Remove almonds from oven and cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Place almonds in the bowl of a food processor; process until finely and evenly ground. Add 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, cinnamon, egg, and 1 tablespoon orange blossom water in that order to the food processor, pulsing after each addition until mixture is evenly combined and resembles a paste.
- Remove small walnut-sized portions of filling with greased hands. Roll them into small logs with thin ends. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Roll out half of the pastry dough on a lightly floured surface until very thin. Place one of the almond paste logs on the edge of the pastry, fold pastry over the filling, covering it completely, and seal the edges. Mold with your fingers into a crescent shape. Using a pastry cutter, cut around the crescent, and transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.
- Bake in the preheated oven until gazelle horns are lightly golden and baked through, about 20 minutes. They should not get too dark. Let cool slightly, about 3 minutes.
- Heat honey in a small saucepan over low-medium heat. Remove from heat and stir in 1 tablespoon orange blossom water. Dip gazelle horns into the honey and place on a serving plate. Sprinkle with crushed pistachios.
- The filling in this recipe has less sugar than usual, because the honey sweetens them further. If you decide to omit the honey, you can add a total of 1 cup of sugar to the filling (or more if you like it extra sweet).
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 107 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 11 g |
| Cholesterol | 13 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 2 g |
| Saturated Fat | 2 g |
| Sodium | 9 mg |
| Sugars | 6 g |
| Fat | 7 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I substituted homemade almond meal with store bought to save them, turned out much smoother than in AR video but was good. Will do it again with ready grinder as saves a lot of time. Making in Hong Kong, quite humid here so needed more flour to give dough more integrity and more chill time. First time attempting these had a few hiccups with pastry but other wise was good recipe. We boiled down honey to make it less runny to help keep almond flakes stick.
although slightly labor intensive if doing them alone, they are worth it in flavor and appearance. I found the dough very easy to work with. I let it rest at room temperature and even then, rolling it out and cutting was very easy. I cut out individual rounds using a biscuit cutter. The filling was easy to make and I ground the almonds in my magic bullet into a quite fine grind so there wouldn’t be large chunks of almond. This worked very well . the filling was very easy to work with rolling into balls. The only thing I questioned was the oven temperature. I tried them at 325 but it was too low a temp. even at 350, they took longer than 20 minutes but that’s ok because they were golden. I did up the orange blossom water out of preference. I would suggest either dipping them in the honey syrup or else dusting them with confectioner’s sugar. by themselves, they are not very sweet. This is a lovely cookie and well worth the effort. This is best suited for a group project done production line style for time’s sake but I definitely will make these routinely for the holidays.
Beautiful turnout! will make again!