Moroccan Krachel Recipe | Sweet Brioche With Orange Blossom Water

Recipe originally published on May 2018

Krachel are Sweet Moroccan Brioches, or Sweet Rolls, that are flavoured with Orange Blossom Water, vanilla and a few other spices. If you are a fan of sweet fluffy things, you are going to love this Moroccan brioche.

Moroccan Sweet Rolls

I grew up eating these brioches. I had them almost everyday and my mom always made sure that we never ran out. She made the best ones, in my humble biased opinion, and today I will share her recipe with you.

Krachel, also called grissate, or el gors, are a very popular snack in Morocco. You can find them in bakeries, shops and in the streets. They are often eaten for breakfast or as a mid-day snack with some mint tea, of course.

While they are a very popular street food, the quality does vary drastically. Commercial vendors tend to cut corners and make low-cost products. The best Krachel you’re ever going to eat are the ones you are going to make.

My preferred way to eat them is with some butter and apricot jam.

How to Make Krachel

Making these Moroccan Brioches is pretty straight forward. While some recipes call for a double rise, my version only requires one.

Here is what you will need:

1. Dry ingredients: all purpose flour, salt, ground star anise, ground cardamom and ground fennel.
2. Orange blossom water: make sure that you get pure orange blossom water. This is the one that I use and I have had excellent results with it.
3. Eggs, Milk, butter and Sugar: These three ingredients are what separates this dough from a bread dough. The fat from the butter, eggs and milk adds richness to the dough while the sugar adds flavour. It’s very important that you respect the ratios of dry to wet ingredients to get a good result.
4. Vanilla: you can use either pure vanilla extract or vanilla sugar. This ingredient is totally optional but I highly recommend it as vanilla tends to highlight the other flavours.
5. Rapide rise yeast: we are using 1 tsp of yeast here which helps us get a fast rise and makes the brioches very light and fluffy.

To make the brioches you can either use a stand mixer or do it by hand. If you are doing it by hand, make sure that your dough is smooth and slightly sticky by the time you are done kneading. Otherwise, it’s all the same.

How to eat Krachel?

My favorite way is to do it, is to cut one open, butter it, add a little drizzle of honey (your favorite jam will work too) and dig in.

That’s my way though. You can do PB and jam, cream cheese and smoked salmon (Montreal style!) or something even more naughty. Dare I say, Nutella with a sprinkle of sea salt?

They are also good on their own 😉

If you like this, you will probably want to try this Batbout recipe. It’s the Moroccan take on Pita Bread.

4.5 from 2 votes

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Krachel Recipe | Moroccan Style Brioche

Krachel are Sweet Moroccan Brioches, or Sweet Rolls, that are flavoured with Orange Blossom Water, vanilla and a few other spices. If you are a fan of sweet fluffy things, you are going to love this Moroccan brioche.

Course Breakfast, Snack

Cuisine Moroccan

Keyword Brioche, Krachel, Moroccan, Recipe, Sweet Rolls

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Rise time 1 hour 30 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Servings 8 servings

Calories 212 kcal

Author Idriss

Ingredients

• 2 cups + 1 tbsp all purpose flour
• 1 large free range egg
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dry active yeast
• 1/2 cup milk, lukewarm
• 1/4 tsp ground fennel
• 1/4 tsp ground anise
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 tbsp orange blossom water

Egg wash

• 1 large egg yolk lightly beaten
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Instructions

1. To your stand mixer bowl, add your warm milk and yeast. Let sit for the yeast to bloom. Once you start noticing bubbles, you will know that your yeast is alive and ready to go. To the same bowl, add your egg, sugar and orange blossom water. Mix until all ingredients are well combined.

2. Add your flour, ground star anise, ground fennel, ground cardamom and salt to the bowl. Attach your dough hook and mix on the lowest speed. Once the dough starts coming together, add your butter. Mix on low speed for 5 minutes and then on high speed for another 5 minutes.

   If you are doing this by hand, knead your dough vigorously for 10 about 10 minutes or until your get a smooth but slightly sticky dough ball.

3. Take your dough out of the bowl and form into a ball. Divide your ball into 6-8 equal pieces and shape them into a smaller balls. Place your dough ball on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Cover and let them rise for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until they roughly double in size.

4. While your dough is rising, preheat your oven to 375F.

5. Brush your dough ball with the beaten egg yolk and drizzle a few sesame seeds on top of each ball. Bake your brioches in the middle rack of your oven for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown.

6. Take out of the oven, let your brioches completely cool down before serving. Enjoy!