Msemen take me right back to all those delicious Moroccan breakfasts I have enjoyed during my travels. You will always see them on the breakfast table, to be enjoyed with jam, honey (or syrup for vegans) and a cup of fresh mint tea.
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
🥞 Ingredient
- flour
- fine semolina
- sugar
- salt
- dry yeast
- warm water
- vegetable oil
- soft vegan butter
Traditionally these delicious Msemen are full of butter (between every layer). For the vegan option I often just substitute this with olive oil, but in this recipe I used vegan butter instead. This does give it extra richness. The recipe is for 6 small msemen, but you can make 2 large msemen with the same amounts.
🥮 Optional fillings
In Morocco you can find Breakfast Msemen filled with cheese. Or savoury Msemen for afternoon snack. If you do wish to use any form of filling, just spread it over the dough before folding, and fold it with the filling.
Filling suggestions;
- onions and / or red peppers
- cheese (vegan cheese)
- mushrooms
- added spices and / or herbs
- apple and cinnamon
- almond paste
- syrup
I have to be honest this is not the 'lightest' breakfast you might find, but it is delicious and a great start of the day. So Enjoy!
For other Moroccan breads, check out these recipes;
Imagine yourself looking out over the atlas mountains while enjoying these Moroccan flatbreads. Please remember to add @haricoco1 to your instagram post, so we can inspire each other with our breakfast tables 😉
This Msemen recipe is part of my series; 'Travels of taste'. Where we use our taste buds to discover world dishes. Imagine to walk through the hustle & bustle of the souks, and discover the flavours Morocco has to offer. Check out my full Moroccan 'travels of taste' post; >>> Morocco - the flavours of the souks
📋 Recipe
Basic Msemen
Ingredients
- Makes 6 small Msemen;
- 130 g 1 cup flour
- 25 g ⅛ cup fine semolina
- ½ tsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- ⅛ tsp dry yeast
- 112.5 ml ½ cup warm water
For folding;
- 50 ml ⅕ cup vegetable oil
- 25 g ⅛ cup fine semolina
- 15 g 1 heaped tbsp soft vegan butter
Instructions
- Mix all the dry ingredients together and add the warm water (not hot).
- Knead it into a nice dough and divide into 6 small balls (plum size), cover the dough balls with vegetable oil, and leave to rest for 15-20 minutes
- Oil your hands and flatten the balls, with a rolling pin roll the dough as thin as possible. (shape is not so important at this moment round, or square-ish is okay)
- Scatter some pieces of vegan butter over the thin dough, and sprinkle with a little semolina.
- Start folding by folding ⅓ of the lower dough towards the middle, and repeat that with the ⅓ of the top part. (Now you have a long rectangle shape of three layers of dough)
- Scatter again a little bit of butter and semolina over the dough.
- Fold ⅓ from the right hands side towards the middle, and repeat this with ⅓ from the left-hand side. (Now you will have a small square shape)
- Repeat this with all of the dough balls.
- Heat a lightly oiled pan (non-stick), or plancha.
- With your fingers or palms flatten the small squares into double sized squares. And fry in the hot pan, one by one, or if it fits two per pan.
- Fry on both sides, until golden brown. The inside should still be chewy, but not raw.
- Leave them on a baking paper while you finish all of them.
- After a few minutes of cooling take the msemen in your hand, and flex it gently backwards and forwards, this helps separating the layers.
- Serve straight away, with jam, honey, syrup, or even savoury!
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