Maamoul from Mecca

For some reason, I am flooded with souvenirs this week. First, was the Roti Abon Gulung from Jayapura. Then, there's the watermelon-flavored soya milk from Ambar. Next, was Dheddy's salted duck eggs from Sidoarjo. And then, there is this Arabian biscuits named Maamoul from a friend of mine who just went for umrah to Mecca.

Maamoul biscuit from Saudi Arabia

Her name is Annisa, but she prefers to be called Caca. She is an AvGeek - an abreviation for Aviation Geek, is a person who loves planes and aircraft - whom I met at the INDODEFENCE Expo & Forum back in 2014. Since the both of us are into aircraft, even when it seems like she masters more knowledge about it more than I do, we get along quite well. 

Last Christmas holiday, she went to Mecca for umrah - a tradition the moslems do where they would visit the Kaaba and perform a series of rituals acts - and she brought back Arabian snacks for yours truly. "Since you love eating so much, here's some treats for you to enjoy," she said. 

The packaging of the biscuit

Maamoul is the name of the Arabian snack. Each box contains 16 mini packaging of the treats. They are round in shape, with simple design of flower and lines on top, and in the middle of it was the dates filling. 

The texture of the food is more like a shortbread instead of biscuits as it was very fragile and crumbly. The shortbread was very plain, mildly sweet and it didn't tasted as buttery as any other shortbread I have ever tasted before, but the sweetness from the dates saved the day. I love how the filling was thick and slightly chewy - it made the whole thing very enjoyable. A cup of Turkish Tea would probably go well with the maamoul. 

The simple design of the shortbread

Look at those thick date filling

P.S. Caca, thank you so much for the Arabian treats! I hope we can meet soon and have a culinary adventure together.