Kaab el Ghazal (كعب الغزال)

Everything here turns on the thinness of the dough. Kaab el Ghazal should not eat like a heavy cookie. It should give under your teeth first as a tender skin, then open into almond, orange blossom, and a little cinnamon. If the pastry is thick, the almond disappears behind it, and that would be a shame after buying good nuts.

This is Fassi tea-tray work, the kind of sweet you offer when the door has stayed open longer than you planned and the glasses keep being refilled. The shape matters too: kaab el ghazal means gazelle ankles, a crescent pinched and curved by hand, elegant without shouting. You roll, fill, seal, bend, and prick so the pastry can bake pale instead of bursting.

Do not rush the paste. The almonds must be blanched, dried, and ground fine with sugar until they hold together, then scented with orange blossom water by the spoon, not drowned. La balance est dans les yeux, the scale is in the eyes, but your hands will tell you when the paste is right: soft enough to shape, firm enough to stand. Make more than you think. A table is a door you leave open.