Mlabes (North African iced cookies)

Despite recent posts to the contrary I'm not big on sweets, preferring savoury any day. However, I've currently got a bit of an obsession with making North African sweets and cakes, partly prompted by the gorgeous patisseries I was window shopping in when I visited Paris last November, and partly due to boredom. I hate the winter, I hate the cold and I hate the rain. For the past few weekends the weather has been dire and the incentive to go out and 'do' something has been sadly lacking. Add to the mix a Winter lurg and you’ve got a recipe for staying at home.

Mlabes are a Tunisian and Algerian delicacy, beautifully iced almond biscuits that melt in the mouth. I searched high and low for a fool proof recipe, but the majority I found online seemed to be based on the same original recipe, one that had at some point been translated from Arabic, in itself not a problem, but no one seemed to know what one of the mystery ingredients was (kthira*) so omitted it. All the recipes did contain egg whites, and as I'm not overly fond of using eggs if I can get away with it I decided to play around with the ingredients a bit. Using margarine as a binding agent seemed to work acceptably, admittedly my cookies are probably a bit 'heavier' than they should be, but I like the texture. I also substituted half ground pistachios for the almonds.
I should point out that any weights listed below are an approximation only; I didn't weigh anything out while I was making the cookies, and adjusted the ingredients depending on the texture. You want the dough to hold together and be quite malleable, so adjust the ground almonds / margarine accordingly.
For the icing, I used an all-in-one royal icing mix (icing sugar and powdered egg white), and added a little more water than the directions on the packet stated so I could dip the cookies in.

Ingredients
200g ground almonds (or 2/3 almonds 1/3 ground pistachios)
50g sugar
2 tablespoons rose water (or orange flower water)
50g margarine (melted)

1. Mix the ground almonds and sugar in a large bowl. Stir in the rose water.
2. Add the melted margarine slowly, you should have a slightly oily malleable dough. If it's too crumbly add more margarine, too loose then add some more almonds.
3. Pinch off small pieces of the dough and roll into balls slightly smaller than golf ball size
4. Arrange on an oiled baking tray and bake at 175C for 20 minutes
5. Allow the cookies to cool completely before icing them
 
Icing
1. Prepare the icing according to the packet (or Google a recipe for royal icing if you want to make your own with egg whites!) you may need to add a little more water, the icing should be thick enough to coat the cookies without slipping off, but not so think that you’ve got to trowel it on! You can either leave the icing plain, or flavour it. I made half with plain icing, and added some violet essence and mauve food colouring to the other half
2. Dip the cookies fully into icing and place on a rack to dry
3. Traditionally they are topped with a diamond of gold or silver leaf, I used a combination of edible gold glitter, bronze sprinkles, and gold stars. To go with the violet ones ideally I would have topped them with a crystallised violet petal…
4. Step back and admire your finished work. Sure they are a little wonky and the icing may not be great, but for a first attempt they are not bad at all

 *Best guess for kthira is that it is a gum or a resin similar to mastic or gum arabic...