Christmas in Egypt

As part of the Christmas Around The World series being hosted by Living Life Intentionally Goblin and I decided to explore Christmas in Egypt.

(Goblin is 38 months)

We discovered that Egyptian Christians don't celebrate Christmas on the 25th December. Christians in Egypt make up about 15% of the population and are part of the Coptic Church who celebrate Christmas on 7th January. Advent in Egypt is a 40 day fast which ends on Christmas eve with a church service that runs until midnight. Everyone wears a new outfit for the service. At the church a special bread is eaten for communion. It is called Qurban (which means sacrifice). 

We thought we'd try making some Qurban. The recipe really appealed to me because its so simple. However there is a Warning - this recipe takes about 5 hours (with all the rising stuff) so don't start just before bed time like I did! 
You'll need:
2 tsp yeast

3 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

2 tbls salted, softened butter

1 tbls orange blossom water (or if you can't find that 1 tsp of orange essence will do)

Warm water

Goblin mixed the yeast with a third of a cup of warm water - Kitty supervised!

Then he poured the flour and sugar into a bowl and rubbed in the butter. 

 He added the orange essence and the yeast and an additional half cup of warm water and gave it all a stir. Then he attempted to knead the dough.

Hublet took the remaining dough that wasn't all over Goblin's trousers and gave it an additional knead on a floured chopping board. Then we covered the dough ball with the plastic bowl and left it for 15 minutes.

After 15 mins Hublet kneaded it again, rolled it into a ball, wrapped it in plastic and left it for one hour. After an hour he folded the dough and left it for another hour. By this time Goblin had gone to bed.

I took the dough and chopped it into 6 and made balls. We covered these with plastic and left them for 15 minutes. Then I rolled each ball out into a pancake and popped them on a floured baking tray and covered them with a wet cloth for an hour.

After removing the wet cloths I sprinkled the tops of the circles with flour and carved christmas designs into the top. Apparently the Egyptian Christians carve a cross. As we aren't a religious family we went with Christmas trees and stars. The bread needs to be cooked in the oven at 200C/400F/Gas mark 6 for 20 minutes.

I have to say it tastes delicious and the orange essence really gives it a Christmassy taste - So Goblin and I have discovered that Christmas in Egypt is DELICIOUS!

On a serious note since the downfall of the Mubarak regime there have been increasing reports of violence against the Christian minority in Egypt. This January (2012) in the true Christmas spirit many Muslims came out to protect the churches while their Christian neighbours celebrated the festival. This is a good time to remember that not everyone has the freedom to celebrate without fear in the way they choose.

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