Sbiaat

Ingredients
- 14 feuilles de brick/ Phyllo dough
- 250 g almonds
- 150 g icing sugar
- 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
- A pinch of Mastic
- 2 tbsp of Orange Blossom Water
- 1 tsp of butter
- Oil (neutral flavor) for frying
- 100g de Acacia Honey
- 1 egg white or egg yolk

Method

• Blanch* the almonds and let them dry a few minutes, fry ½ of the quantity and reserve.
• Blend both versions separately in equal amount of sugar, cinnamon and Orange blossom Water. Blend well. You need a reliable food processor for this.
• Put both almonds together, add Mastic and knead the dough until you get a compact paste.
• You might add 1 tbsp of melted butter while blending in case the almond used is a bit “dry”.
• Divide the dough into small balls and roll in the shape of sticks 6 cm tall and 1 cm large.
• Cut the sheets into rectangular strips 10 cm large and 15 cm tall. 
• Put the almond paste in one of the ends.
• Fold both long sides inwards to bring the borders to the middle and start rolling the sheet around the filling. Click here to see how to make this (although it’s in french but you just need the photos).
• Put a bit of egg yolk on the tip of the sheet of brick to stick the cigar-shape or rectangular shape you just got. Give it a push with your fingers so you get an evenly distributed almond inside; You will get less oil in if you compact them and distribute evenly and that will help keeping them for a long time without have soggy sweets...
• Fry them in pan filled with hot oil and immediately dip in honey that you would flavor with 1 tbsp of  Orange blossom water and heat for 5 min.
• Drain your cigars and once cooled, store sealed in a box.
• You can keep them in a freezer for months.
• You can also keep them raw, in a freezer until the day you want to serve them, with an ice cream scoop for Dessert or a cup of tea for Tea Time.

Notes:

• To blanch almonds, drop them in a bowl and pour boiling water. Let rest for 3 minutes.
• Drain water and remove skin from almonds with the fingers. Dry them.
• 2/ For a roasted version let them roast in the oven for a period of 10 to 15 min at a
• temperature 165 degrees C.