Breakfast Moroccan-style - bread recipes

Breakfast in Morocco often includes yoghurt, fresh fruit and hard-boiled eggs dipped in cumin. Accompanying this will be special breads - malaoui - a flat, roti-like bread, and bghrir - a pancake that's a cross between a drop scone and a crumpet. These are wonderful with local honey or jams. Fatima at Dar el Hana in Fez is a dab hand at whisking up these breads for the guesthouse clients, and has even started giving Moroccan cooking lessons. Here are her recipes.

Breakfast at Dar el Hana, Fez: Fatima, left, and her sister Rajae

Malaoui - makes about 6
100g plain flour (fino, not semolina)
400ml warm (but not hot) water
1 tsp salt
vegetable oil for hands and surfaces
a knob of butter, melted and mixed with an equal quantity of oil, for brushing
some extra flour combined with an 8g sachet of Ideal baking powder

Place the flour and salt in a large bowl and slowly mix in the warm water, forming a dough.
With oiled hands, place the ball of dough into a clean bowl and cover with plastic film. Leave for 30 minutes.
Oil your hands again, and take small balls of dough to work into individual malaoui. On an oiled surface and using your fingers, smooth the dough into a thin flat square about 30x30cm. Brush with the butter and oil mixture and sprinkle some of the extra flour/baking powder mixture.
Fold over one third of the square, brush with oil and butter, and sprinkle with the flour. Fold over the other third and repeat - you'll now have a long strip of dough in three layers.
Repeat all this again so you now have a square parcel of dough made of 9 layers.
Using an oiled palm, press down to compress all the layers.

To cook, heat a heavy frying pan, then add a small amount of oil. When it's hot, add a malaoui parcel and heat until cooked through and coloured on both sides, pressing down on the dough from time to time.

Bghrir - makes about 15 pancakes
100g fine semolina (Smida Rqiqa)
100g plain flour (fino)
800ml warm (not hot) water (you can use carbonated water such as Ouelmes)
1tsp salt
1 dessertspoon dry yeast
1 8g sachet of Ideal baking powder

Place flours, salt and yeast into a food processor with the water or whisk them in a bowl, slowly at first, and then at high speed for two minutes. Pour the mixture into a bowl, stir in the baking power, and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Cover with plastic if the weather is cool. The consistency should be thin enough to pour. If it's too thick, it won't bubble like a crumpet.
To cook, heat a medium-sized non-stick pan and add a little butter or oil. When it's hot, add a soup ladle of the pancake mixture. Tip the pan to allow the mixture to fill the base of the pan. Cook only on one side. The pancake is cooked when the top is bubbly, it's dry throughout and is a pale golden colour underneath. Remove to a clean plate, and brush with a little butter to stop the next one in the stack from sticking. Repeat until all the batter is used.

You will find our list of Moroccan recipes here: Moroccan recipe menu


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