“For me, food has always been a language: It’s a way that I could connect with other people and show love,” Umber Ahmad says while rolling ma’amoul cookie dough in her Dumbo kitchen. Outside, there’s a steady downpour of freezing rain. Inside, there’s a sense of effortlessly curated coziness: sage candles are lit and cashmere blankets strewn over couches, as soft jazz music plays in the background. The air smells like sugar, dates, and butter.
Ahmad didn’t follow a traditional path to becoming a baker. There was no culinary school, no stint at a Michelin-star restaurant. But growing up as a child of Pakistani immigrants in Marquette, Michigan, food was just always part of who she was: she’d bake with her mother and sister, as well as with her Finnish nanny “Gram.” (“She’d wrap me in blankets and put me up on the counter,” Ahmad remembers. “While she would be baking, she’d be telling me stories about her childhood or when she first got married or what it was like living on a farm.”)
During the summers, they spent two months in Pakistan with their extended family where something was always on the stove or in the oven. Then, in August, the Ahmads would spend the month in an entirely new country like Sweden or Spain. “The first thing that my parents would do is go and talk to all of the local shopkeepers and taxi drivers. They’d ask them where we should go and eat,” she explains. As an adult, she continued to retain that culinary curiosity and familiarity. Even though she worked the demanding hours of an investment banker—her specialty was in the global expansion of food products—she baked for every holiday, for every party, for every friend.
One day, one of her clients, the famed celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, heard about her hobby. He asked her if he could try some of her baked goods. “I spent three days making everything I knew how to make from biscuits, to cookies to cheesecakes, everything. At the end of that, he looked at my food, looked at me, and said: ‘What do you want to do with this?’”
The answer was Mah-Ze-Dahr Bakery. (The name was a nod to the Urdu word mazedar, which means “the essence.” ) Founded in 2013, Mah-Ze-Dahr originally only took online orders. Yet then came Ahmad’s “Heavenly” cheesecake. “I wanted to make a cheesecake that I liked—it’s a little bit lighter,” she explains. “It’s got the zest of a lemon, it’s got some fresh vanilla bean, and it’s nestled in a dark chocolate cookie crust.” It amassed a cult following that provided enough capital for Ahmad to open a brick-and-mortar shop in the West Village. Fast forward a decade and two more locations, and Mah-Ze-Dahr is a sugary success story.
Yet even as her business grows, Ahmad never wants to lose that homey kitchen feel. This month, for Eid—the Muslim spring holiday that marks the end of Ramadan—Mah-Ze-Dahr is baking ma’amoul cookies, based on an old Ahmad family recipe. “It is a cookie that originates in the Middle East, made from semolina and stuffed with a mixture of dates and walnuts,” Ahmad says of ma’amoul. “Dates play a significant role throughout Ramadan, and we open each one of our fasts every evening with dates. Ma’amoul is the simple, yet most luxurious, thing.”
The celebratory confection is adorned with a floral motif, pressed from a mold that the Ahmad family has used since Ahmad was a little girl. “Ma’amoul molds are really special, mostly because they’re passed down from generation to generation. Very often the design that’s inside the mold has some significance. Some people will say it’s like a family crest or a family design or things like that. Ours have always been that shape,” she says. “I wouldn’t say that it was made for us. But for us, it feels very special as others will have different shapes or different designs. We happen to love the one that we have.”
Below, see a recipe for Umber Ahmad’s ma’amoul.
Mah-ze-Dahr Bakery Ma’amoul
- 18 ounces (500g) dates (must weigh these, as dates vary greatly in size)
- 2 3/4 cups (330g) walnuts
- 2T (60g) orange blossom water
- 3/4 cup (130g) wildflower honey
- 2t (6g) kosher salt
- 2t (20g) mahlab
Note: mahlab is made from the seeds inside the cherry pits of a specific type of cherry. It can be found in specialty grocers, like kalustyans, or online.
- 19T (2 sticks, plus 3T; or 150g) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup (150g) vegetable shortening
- 1/2 cup plus 1.5T (120g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup plus 2t (210g) semolina flour
- 2 cups (300g) all-purpose flour
- 1T (12g) kosher salt
- 1 ma’amoul cookie mold (can be found on amazon.com and other online outlets)
- In a large bowl, whisk together the semolina and all-purpose flours, along with the kosher salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, shortening, and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
- Add in the flour and salt mixture to the butter and sugar mixture. Mix until combined and the dough comes together.
- Cover the bowl and let the dough rest while you make the filling.
- In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients above. Using a food processor or blender, and working in small batches, puree the mixture until you achieve a smooth textured paste. Repeat in small batches until you’ve pureed the entire bowl.
- Chill the filling mixture for 30 minutes.
- While the filling is chilling, preheat your oven to 350 degrees (325 if using a convection oven).
- Portion the dough into 30 gram balls. Then portion the filling mixture into 35 gram balls.
- Lightly flour your work surface.
- Place one ball of cookie dough on the surface. Using the palm of your hand, press down on the dough to make a rough circle.
- Place one ball of filling in the middle of the circle and, using your fingers, wrap the dough up around the ball of filling.
- Work the dough so that it completely covers the filling.
- Press the completed cookie dough ball into a ma’amoul mold, making sure all the crevices and edges are filled with dough. Using your palm, press down on the dough to even it out.
- Turn the cookie mold such that the dough is facing your work surface and tap the top of the mold to release the cookie.
- Repeat this process until you’ve worked through all your dough and filling (you should have 30 cookies total).
- Place the cookies on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or a silpat, about 1” apart. Bake cookies for 14-18 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden brown.
- Cool and enjoy!
In this story: henna art by Sabeen Marghoob; creative direction, Mah-Ze-Dahr Bakery, J aime Cohen; photo assistant: Seth Kenji
