Lemon And Orange Ramadan Crescent Cookies

These citrus flavoured crescent moon cookies were perfect for my young brother who wanted to share his Ramadan celebration with his school friends. 

We could have used lime rind in the recipe too but it was too strong. This cookie became our Ramadan Dawah cookie, a clever and generous way to introduce Ramadan to others.

Before and after, ensure your crescent are thin when cutting out because they puff up when baking into crisp, airy cookies.

Ingredients

• 100g / 3 1/5oz softened butter
• 75g / 1 3/4 caster sugar
• 1 egg, separated
• 210g / 7oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• finely grated rind of 1 orange
• finely grated rind of 1 lemon
• 2-3 tablespoons of orange juice

Method

1. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually beat in the egg yolk.
3. Sift in the flour and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Add the orange and lemon rinds and the orange juice. Mix to form a soft, slightly sticky dough.
5. Roll the dough out on a heavily floured surface to 3-4mm thick.
6. Cut out rounds using a 7.5 biscuit cutter and make crescent shapes by cutting away a quarter of each round. Re-roll the trimmings to make about 25 crescents.
7. Place the crescents baking trays lined with baking parchment and bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges turn light brown.
8. Leave to cool. Dust with icing sugar.

Tip: Make a lemon cream filling by beating 125g / 4 1/2 oz softened butter with 175g / 6oz icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of finely grated lemon rind, 1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoon of lemon oil. Bake a double quantity of the cookies and dollop a teaspoonful of the lemon cream between two crescents.

To make the crescent cookie gifts we first printed out a Ramadan message onto labels. Transparent pouches (card pockets) were used for packing and each pouch was backed with yellow tissue paper. Several crescents and labels later, the final gifts looked like this:

30 were made for my brother's friends and extra for teachers. We even had a few left over for family.

Ramadan Mubarak.

Peace + eco-jihad.
Zaufishan, The Eco Muslim