Cranberry kataifi recipe
Festive fruit gives this Middle Eastern-inspired pastry a seasonal twist. You can buy kataifi, finely-shredded filo pastry, frozen from Middle Eastern grocery stores. This recipe makes 20-25 mini kataifi, perfect as a sweet party snack.
Tip: You'll need a mini muffin tray with small inserts, around 5cm (2 inch) across.
This recipe is courtesy of Farmer J.
Ingredients
- 250 g dried cranberries
- 25 g dried barberries (available from Middle Eastern delis)
- 50 ml fresh orange juice
- 50 ml fresh lemon juice
- 100 g fresh apple with the skin left on, chopped into 5mm (0.2 inch) pieces
- 1 small block of fresh kataifi pastry, approx 1kg (2.2lbs) but you’ll have some left over
- 200 g unsalted butter
- 100 ml clear honey
- 2 tbsp chopped pistachios
Details
- Cuisine: Middle Eastern
- Recipe Type: Pastry
- Difficulty: Medium
- Preparation Time: 20 mins
- Cooking Time: 35 mins
- Serves: 10
Step-by-step
- Soak the cranberries and barberries in the orange and lemon juice overnight. They’ll plump up nicely.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/360°F/gas mark 4.
- Gently melt the butter and loosen up the honey, the best way is over a container of hot water.
- Pour a teaspoon of melted butter into each of the inserts of your muffin tray.
- Kataifi comes in a thick, tangled mat. Prise off a piece and pull apart the strands, arranging the kataifi like a bird’s nest in the palm of your hand so that there is an indentation in the middle.
- With your other hand take a small pile of cranberry filling and squeeze the juice out. Place it in the middle of your bird’s nest and gradually work the kataifi lattice around the cranberry mix. Place each nest into the muffin tray.
- Pour another teaspoon of melted butter over the kataifi and bake in the oven for 30 minutes until golden brown.
- As soon as the kataifi is out of the oven, pour a teaspoon of molten honey over it and it’ll melt right in.
- Leave to set for a couple of minutes, prise out the kataifi, sprinkle over the chopped green pistachio and leave to cool on greaseproof paper. The nests can be kept in an airtight container for up to two weeks.
- Gently warm before serving with vanilla ice cream and blackcurrant coulis.
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Cranberry and amaretto stollen cake
Clementine sponges with cranberry sauce
Apricot, honey and pistachio tart