Briouats aux Amandes

Briouats aux amandes — almond briouats — are the sweet version of the Moroccan triangular pastry that already exists in the database in its savory form. The savory briouats are filled with meat, shrimp or cheese; the sweet ones are filled with almond paste scented with orange-blossom water, fried until golden, and dipped in warm honey. Both use warqa, the paper-thin Moroccan pastry dough that is unique to the Maghreb and is the cousin of phyllo but even thinner. Sweet briouats are made for Eid, weddings and tea service, and they are one of the first things a Moroccan pastry cook learns to make, because the folding technique is the foundation of all warqa work.

The warqa shatters in a glassy crackle, the almond filling is warm and sweet, and the honey on top is floral and sticky, the sesame nutty. Hot, crisp and sweet in three layers.

Warqa is the Moroccan pastry and it is thinner than phyllo, almost translucent, brushed with oil between layers so they separate on frying into individual glassy shards. The almond filling must be cold when filled, or it melts and leaks through the thin pastry during frying. The triangles are sealed with a flour-and-water paste, not crimped, because warqa is too thin to hold a crimp. Fried hot and fast, they go in and out of the oil in 2 minutes. The honey dip is the final step: the hot triangles are dropped into warm honey, absorbing it by capillary action through the cracks in the warqa.