Gata Armenian classic cookies

Step-by-step cooking

1. Step 1:

   

   How to make an Armenian ghata? Prepare the products. Start by making the filling. To do this, sift wheat flour into a bowl and make a recess in it. Melt the butter and cool it to room temperature. Pour the butter into the recess in the flour.

2. Step 2:

   

   Grind butter and flour to a state of wet crumbs, pour sugar into a bowl.

3. Step 3:

   

   Mix the resulting mass. At this step, you can add a couple of tablespoons of honey and 100 grams of walnuts ground in a bender to the filling. In the original recipe, honey and nuts are not added to the filling, but I added, in my opinion, it tastes better this way.

4. Step 4:

   

   Start preparing the dough. Cool the butter by cutting it into pieces. In a large bowl, sift 2/3 of the flour (this will enrich it with oxygen, and the baking will turn out more magnificent). Make a recess in the flour, place pieces of cold butter in it, chop the butter with a knife, thereby mixing the butter and flour. You can do this on a cutting board or table. It's more convenient for me to do it in a large bowl.

5. Step 5:

   

   You should get flour grains the size of buckwheat. If you processed the dough on the table, pour it into a bowl at this stage. Separate one white from the yolk. Leave the yolk to lubricate the cookies.

6. Step 6:

   

   Collect the dough grains into a slide. Make a recess in it, break one whole egg and one egg white there.

7. Step 7:

   

   Gently mix the eggs with a fork and add the matzoni to them.

8. Step 8:

   

   Dissolve the soda in the matzoni, stir, foam appears, then add salt and vanilla sugar to the matzoni. I do it directly in a bowl of dough.

10. Step 9:

    

    Gently grabbing the butter-flour mixture from the edges, knead the soft dough.

11. Step 10:

    

    Adding the remaining flour as needed, knead the dough and assemble it into a ball. You may take more or less flour than I do, so focus on the consistency of the dough. The dough as well as the filling can be prepared in advance and stored in the refrigerator, covered with cling film, for several days.

12. Step 11:

    

    Divide the dough into two parts, roll each into rectangles 2-3 mm thick.

13. Step 12:

    

    Place the filling on top of the rolled dough, retreating from the edges by one centimeter.

14. Step 13:

    

    Roll the dough with the filling into a tight roll.

15. Step 14:

    

    Grease the roll with yolk and prick it with a fork in several places.

16. Step 15:

    

    With a sharp knife, cut the roll into pieces 2-2.5 centimeters thick. I sprinkled the remains of the filling on top of it, but you don't have to do that. Using a spatula or a wide knife, carefully transfer the cookies to a baking sheet covered with parchment at a distance of 2-3 centimeters from each other. Bake in a preheated 200C oven for about 20 minutes. It may take a little more or less time, be guided by your oven. Bake until browning.